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For example: Well, that was his answer anyways. Or However, the answer was wrong. Answer I would call this a sentence adverb : NOAD definition: sentence adverb noun Grammar an adverb or adverbial phrase that expresses a writer's or speaker's attitude to the content of the sentence in which it occurs (such as frankly , obviously ), or places the sentence in a particular context (such as technically , politically ). Usage note from About.com: Unlike an ordinary adverb — which is conventionally defined as a word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb — a sentence adverb modifies a sentence as a whole or a clause within a sentence. Dozens of words can be used as sentence adverbs, among them actually, apparently, basically, briefly, certainly, clearly, conceivably, confidentially, curiously, evidently, fortunately, hopefully, however, ideally, incidentally, indeed, interestingly, ironically, naturally, predictably, presumably, regrettably, seriously, strangely, surpris

"To have" seems to fill a lot of different needs in the English language, apart from its literal meaning of possessing something. It's an integral part of perfect and perfect progressive verb tenses: I have run , I had run , I had been running , I will have been running , etc. It also indicates need: I have to eat , I had to leave (or is this another tense of some sort?) This leads to forms of to have showing up multiple times in a sentence, and yet it makes perfect sense: I had to have had at least three apples. How did this come about? I've noticed avoir and tener also have these same uses in French & Spanish, respectively. Answer First, a little side note: To have in English (as in other languages such as French, Spanish, and Italian) is an auxiliary verb most commonly used for forming the simple/continuous perfect and pluperfect tenses, among others. The other mean example of an auxiliary verb is to be , which is used very similarly in other European lan

Well, the title is a little misleading, because both "time of day" and "time of the day" are possible and can have the same meaning. [ here ] But "time of day" is more commonly used (when we're not mentioning a particular day, of course): So you're more likely to hear: We love to eat around this time of day . But after we substitute "hour" for "time", the article is almost always in there: So the previous example would become: We love to eat around this hour of the day . I imagine that native speakers of English would agree that it sounds a little off (or at least less natural) to say: ? We love to eat around this hour of day . These 2-grams† bellow will show that the tendency to omit the definite article after time of exists in other similar phrases too: † or bigrams, or n-grams, if you will To complicate things further, take a look at this 2-gram , which tells you that any time of the day is a little more common than any t

What is scientific racism? What is institutional racism? Are there any discernable differences between the two, or can they be used interchangeably? Answer Let's start by defining racism for completeness sake. Racism is a belief that humans can be divided into distinct groups, called races, and that one or more group is either superior or inferior to (an)other group(s). Institutional racism is pretty much what it sounds like. That's simply racism as perpetrated by an institution such as a school, government body, or business. If an organization demonstrates racism (as opposed to an individual demonstrating racism), then it can be classified as institutional racism. It is also known as structural racism, state racism, and systemic racism. Scientific racism can be practiced by an individual or an institution. It is racism that is supported or justified by scientific or pseudoscientific practices, theories, or hypotheses. There is also economic racism , which is a social or ec

There are several words in the English which have been created as a "merging" of multiple existing words. e.g. Insofar - Merged from words "in, so, far". How do such words come about? It surely can't simply be a matter of a mistake growing in usage so much that it is eventually accepted as valid, because there are so many examples for which this has not happened. e.g. "alot"- This is not a valid word, although it is commonly written. Answer The compounding is one of the ways new words are formed, nothing mystical here. If you look at various English compounds and how they are formed you will notice that these are different compared to your example. If you compare "a lot" and "alot" you will find that this is not a matter of compounding, here the compounding of the meaning is not pronounced, but this is a change of grammar that would go against rules that govern phrases such as "a little" and "a few". Finally,

Where should I place the adverb? Potentially, it could be moved back to where it was. It could be potentially moved back to where it was. It could potentially be moved back to where it was. Should it directly precede the verb "moved"? Or ahead of "be moved"? Or in front of the whole statement? Answer I believe that potentially would be considered an adverb of certainty in this context. The adverb should be placed after the first auxiliary verb could , so the answer is number three from your list: It could potentially be moved back to where it was.

The definition that I have had in my head for most of my life is: dialect : a variation of the original language (usually regional), sometimes even using different vocabulary and grammar accent : a discernible influence of another language (usually because the speaker is not talking in his native tongue) Yet, I keep hearing about Southern, Scottish or New York accents...shouldn't these be more accurately called "dialects"? I could see that the answer might not be as clear cut in the US as in the UK because there are probably far more "native" American speakers whose ancestors' native language was not English... Disclaimer: I'm German myself and I'm more or less assuming that "accent" and "dialect" directly correspond to their German "lookalikes": "Akzent" and "Dialekt". Maybe the semantics of those two words are simply different in English? If so, feel free to close this question. Answer A dialect, a

I more often see the first version being used, but to me, that doesn't sound right because I can't see the subject there. I would definitely use the second one. What am I missing here? Update: searching "As is customary" on Google returns more results than "As it is customary", hinting the first form is the most widely used... but I don't know whether that is a good test.

Here is an example from an old book. I know it’s old but it can’t be simply discarded, I hope. "I never dare have spoken — never dare have told you that my love for you was killing me" So, I wonder if the following three all mean the same thing? I never dare have told you. I never dared to have told you. I didn't ever dare to have told you. I would like to know how popular in terms of the usage frequency the combination of dare and a perfect infinitive is.

There are some people who have interests in only some narrow field, and are not interested in anything else: physicians who heal only ears, and for whom the stomach doesn't matter clerks who know all the fiscal laws by heart, but ignore anything that isn't written there fanatics who care only what the scriptures say housewives interested only in cooking and soap operas geeks who care only for computer games and comics crazy scientists that know everything about chemistry but don't know who Columbus was and have probably never heard of America What do I call someone who has such narrow-field interests and/or knowledge?

This link states that: When you use the present perfect tense you have to be talking about a period of time that you still consider to be going on. For example, if it’s still morning, you can say, "I’ve shaved this morning." If it is afternoon or evening, all of a sudden "I’ve shaved this morning" sounds really weird. "I've shaved this morning" sounds more like past perfect, and indication of specific time (in the morning) makes this sentence incorrect. Am I spot it on? Then what is the difference between the construct of past perfect and present perfect and future perfect? Answer "I've shaved this morning" has the verb in present perfect tense ("I've shaved"). "I'd shaved that morning when my friend walked in" would be past perfect ("I'd shaved"). As the link states, using the present perfect is fine with a specific time like "this morning" as long as it is still the morning. Present

The slang term "scrub", when referred to a person, can mean several things. It seems like the original usage as an adjective is someone who is not good at something - video games, sports, etc. I am interested to know if the first time it was used to refer to a "guy who thinks he's cool but he's not" was in the TLC song "No Scrubs". I am not familiar with the term before that and it seems like an isolated usage. Answer I vividly remember the term scrubs being used in the late 1960s in high-school sports (in Texas) to refer to the players who barely made the team and would be extremely unlikely ever to appear in an actual game that wasn't already a blow-out win or loss. Often scrubs were underclassmen who were included on the team to get seasoning and on the off-chance that they might develop into useful players in future years when some of the current players would have graduated. Robert Chapman & Barbara Kipfer, Dictionary of American Sla

I've always transcribed "pink" and "ring" with the vowel /I/ (lax) vs. the tense /i/, and my students have never argued with me about it, but suddenly I've been getting a good number of students arguing for the /i/. They seem to have a vowel somewhere in between perhaps--sometimes it sounds like straight /i/. Just wondering if you've heard about this happening in certain parts of the country or if this has always been a sort of variant. Most of my student are from the midwest (Michigan)

Studying English in school as a second language, I learned that human being would be the proper noun to describe a member of the Homo sapiens species, but it seems human is perfectly acceptable in English nowadays. It can even sometimes substitute (supposedly gender-specific) man where that was used in a gender-neutral way, e.g. in humankind , but not in *chairhuman, *firehuman etc. The gender nouns man and (derived) woman , however, have their plurals as men and women , respectively, so why is umlauted *humen not acceptable at least as an alternative to the regular plural morphem +s which is used to form humans ? The same question applies to some peoples or tribes, e.g. the Germans and Normans , not *Germen and *Normen . The question even applies if human and man have different actual etymologies (Romance vs. Germanic), because perceived or folk etymology is often at least as important. Also, does this effectively render these words gender-neutral , although they seem to

Where does the expression seat-of-the-pants come from? These dictionaries ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) don't give much insight. What is the etymology of seat-of-the-pants ? Answer I believe the full phrase started as flying by the seat of your pants and it comes from the aviation community. When flying an aircraft a pilot can rely on instruments, e.g., a turn coordinator , to tell him whether he is flying his airplane in coordinated flight or, he can rely on the way it feels . The pilot can feel whether the force keeping him in his seat is directly straight down into his seat as it is when you are sitting in a chair on the ground or whether it is going through the chair at an angle- picture yourself sitting on a chair on the side of a hill. You really can feel the difference in the seat of your pants . As StonyB points out, this article from Popular Mechanics mentions that a pilot can also feel when the aircraft is climbing or diving by sensing how "heavy" or "light" he f

What does "calling shotgun" have to do with reservation of a seat near the car driver? Answer According to the Phrase Finder , the related phrase riding shotgun has the following original meaning: To travel as an armed guard next to a vehicle's driver. Latterly, (chiefly in the USA) - to travel in a car's front passenger seat. For example, the site writes that: The reference is to the US stagecoaches that were an essential feature of Hollywood westerns - usually being chased by Indians or bad guys in black hats. In the 1939 classic film Stagecoach, George Bancroft plays Marshal Curly Wilcox who is featured riding shotgun in screens throughout the film, to protect the coach from the pesky Apaches. He mentions the term explicitly in the dialogue: "You boys take care of the office for a couple of days. I'm going to Lordsburg with Buck. I'm gonna ride shotgun." That is, it is a Hollywood reference to the practice of having an armed guard in a stagecoac

Does going to only express an intention and will some kind of prediction that doesn't necessarily happen? EDIT: Thanks for all your answers. I asked this question because I always fail to complete exercises like this from an ESL book: We will fly to Venice in June. (Correct: But, how can I be sure that I'm not sick in June?) Philipp will be 15 next Wednesday (Correct: Since his birthday is a fixed day, this will happen). They will get a new computer. (Wrong: Why?, If I need a new computer, I simply get a new one) In 2020 people are going to buy more hybrid cars. (Wrong, Why? Who can tell for sure). Answer Using will (or shall ) is the proper way to form the actual future tense, and is completely generic. IT can be used in any case in which you wish to refer to the future. Going to + verb is a shortcut construct that is commonly used in many situations. It is typically used to express occurrences in the near -future. In many cases however, particularly in colloquial speec

I realise there has been a lot of discussion of who vs whom on these forums, but as far as I can tell none of the previous posts answer my question. Which of these sentences is (more) correct, and why? "South American footballers, including the likes of Maradona, Garrincha, and Pelé whom I have met, are coming to the party." OR "South American footballers, including the likes of Maradona, Garrincha, and Pelé who I have met, are coming to the party." Please assume that the writer isn't taking the stance that who should be used all time, but instead wishes to use whom where it would be traditionally appropriate to do so. Answer ‘Who’ does not inflect for number: it is always ‘who’ as the subject of a clause and ‘whom’ in all other contexts, whether its antecedent is singular or plural. That said, your phrase is rather ambiguously worded (have you only met Pelé, or have you met all three, or have you met a lot of South American footballers, including Maradona, G

Is it more appropriate to say When would be the best time and date for the meeting? or What would be the best time and date for the meeting? I would assume the former and not the latter, but is it just as acceptable? Answer Both are correct, however, In my experience "what is the best time" is more common. The questions amount to the same thing but have subtly different meanings. When is the best time ...? The question here is "choose the best time, now when is that time?", you are choosing the time and then giving an attribute of the time — when. What is the best time ...? The question here is: of all the possible times which of these do you choose? Here you are choosing the time itself, not the "when" attribute of the time. This is confusing because the time and its attribute "when" have the same name. Consider this as a comparative case. At a school, the day is divided into eight periods, starting on the half hour with an hour off for lunch.

Is there a word that describe a person who doesn't "practice what they preach"? Basically, is there a synonym for "hypocrite" that carries less pejorative connotations? For example, let's say a friend of mine says he is a Christian. Yet he engages in behaviors considered sins by the Bible, making him a hypocrite. And I would like to tell him I think he is a hypocrite. What would be a good word to use here, so my criticism seems constructive rather than offensive? I tried using a thesaurus , but the synonyms that came up were even worse (ie: they are more offensive than "hypocrite"). Related (but different) question: Alternatives to "hypocrite" , which asks what to call someone who knows they are in the group of people they criticize. Answer Two alternatives come to mind: I. Hypocritical (as an adjective) Example : "I think you are being hypocritical." I view using the adjective as less confrontational because it attacks the

Most people, especially receptionists and air hostesses have the ability to smile in a fake way. Being professional, their smile isn't real. Inside they cry and die a thousand dead of tensions but they smile like a fresh mango. Well, I appreciate this for their job. I wanna know what such a person is called who smiles fake? Answer I would call such smile a Pan Am smile . The Pan Am smile , aka the 'Botox smile," is the name given to a fake smile, in which only the zygomatic major muscle is voluntarily contracted to show politeness. It is named after the airline Pan American World Airways which went out of business in 1991, whose flight attendants would always flash every jet setter the same perfunctory smile. As for the person, hospitality professional sounds like what fits best your description.

Especially in IT it is often neccessary to write chains of nouns like "Messages List" because one cannot use "The list of messages" for variable name in a programming language. I can't understand how to construct them correctly for plurals, ex. "Message list" or "Messages list" ? What grammar rules concern this subject? As a maybe special case, I'm interesting in naming the number of something, ex. the number of apples. It is common to use "apple count" (altough 'count' means counting, not quantity). What is right, "apple count" or "apples count", and why? I found a little bit similar question. Maybe both forms are allowed? Answer Using the plural would be odd, if not outright wrong. A list of messages is a message list, not a messages list. A trap for mice is a mouse trap, not a mice trap. A catcher of flies is a flycatcher, not a fliescatcher. Determination of types of compound nouns is compound n

Is it grammatically correct to use the word "do" twice in a row? Examples: We do do what you are talking about. instead of... We do what you are talking about. or Our process does do what you are talking about. instead of... Our process does what you are talking about. Is the meaning any different?

Earlier this evening, I was trying to tell someone, "I don't care who wins the Superbowl this year. I don't have a-" I could't remember how to complete this saying (to mean I don't have a personal interest in the outcome of a particular contest, debate, or game). I don't have a stake in this game . That's the closest I can come up with, but I seem to remember there's an animal-related version as well. Internet searches have not been helpful. "A pig at this market" maybe? Answer There are two similar phrases for this. One is "I don't have a horse in this race" and another is "I don't have a dog in this fight." Both mean basically what you said--that the person saying the phrase doesn't personally have anything at stake in a situation.

I was asking this question on Area 51: "How do I tell if an airport scanner is a X-ray scanner?", but I keep wanting to put an 'an' in front of X-ray because it starts with the 'eh' sound. So is it 'a' or 'an'? Answer Definitely "an". The word X-ray is never pronounced any way other than "exray", and as has been discussed before, the choice of a or an is based solely on pronunciation, regardless of spelling. Since X-ray is pronounced beginning with a vowel, it must be preceded by an .

In math, I just learned that when performing subtraction, the terms for each number are as follows: minuend − subtrahend = difference I have never heard of minuend and subtrahend before, and I'm fairly certain the majority of people I encounter have never heard these terms before either. Is there a better alternative to these two words? Context: I'm writing some software that subtracts a set of items from another set of items, such as in this math.SE question . I need to name these two sets of items so they are easy to understand for an average user, or a future developer working on the same software. Edit: For those who want to see code, I'm writing a PowerShell cmdlet that would be used like so: Get-Difference -Minuend "a.csv" -Subtrahend "b.csv" and in the code I may write something like: var minuendData = readFile(minuendFilePath) Currently I have the following comment at the top of my code: // If you don't know what a minuend or a subtrahend i

Reopen note: There is a quite finite and modest amount of evidence in the literature about this issue, which members can record here as they see fit. Less than there is for example about what a noun is or what a verb is, or how to tell what the Subject of a sentence is. It's a simple question, that people need to be able to get answered on a site such as this. It is of continuing interest as more recent questions such as this attest to. The fact that people disagree about the outcome of the evidence does not mean that there is too much evidence to be documented. Quite the reverse. They disagree because there is relatively little evidence altogether. However, it is seriously interesting evidence. The question What part of speech is to as in: I need to know. To err is human, to forgive divine. What am I to do? This question is not really about the difference in meaning between the examples. It is a question about what grammatical or syntactic reasons we have to classify this it

British and American English differ in the way they conjugate verbs for collective nouns: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=877 . For example, an American would probably say "China is winning" whereas a Brit would probably say "China are good." Similarly, I think the American would say "The Chinese gymnastics team is good" and the Brit would say "The Chinese gymnastics team are good." My question: what happens when pronouns enter into it? Brits can say "The Chinese gymnastics team know that they are good." I think that's straightforward enough. But what about the American equivalent? My American coworker argues for "The Chinese gymnastics team knows that they are good." To me, this seems to create a clash between the plural "they" and two earlier cues that the subject of the sentence is singular: (1) "team" and (2) "knows." Even if "team" can work as both a plural or a singular

I am looking for a word to let others understand that somebody is a person who does exactly the opposite of what he speaks. Is there any word for this? Answer The word that comes closest is probably hypocrite .

I am curious at the ubiquitous use of "that"--rather than "who," or "whom"--when referring to a person. Wondering how it happened that people became equated with objects. Some magazines still use "who" and "whom," but I have read "that" many times in print and almost always hear it used in everyday conversation.

In class, our teacher talked about different ways to use consequently. We can use it at the beginning of a sentence, or use it after colon(;) to connect two sentences. However, our teacher say that we can put consequently between commas to connect two sentences.(e.g.: The weather is good, consequently, we can go picnic today.) The teacher said consequently can be used in the third way for academic paper. But I am just not sure it can be used this way. Can anyone help me with this question? Answer Your teacher is incorrect; "The weather is good, consequently, we can go (have a) picnic today." uses a comma splice , which is considered an error, particularly in the strict context of academic writing. Stick to the first two methods.

I'm writing a technical document, and I need to convey the fact that we had to find a non-optimal, non-orthodox solution that was adopted as the best available alternative (a hack) to solve an otherwise problematic issue. Please note that I refer to the positive meaning of "hack", and not at the negative one, as clarified in this question . To me, "escamotage" doesn't sound really appropriate in a technical document, and "hack" seems a bit informal and not very "technical". Is there a construction that can help? Answer I would go so far as to say that unless you are very sure of your audience, you should not use "escamotage" at all, as it is not in broad circulation (0 hits at the Corpus of Contemporary American English(COCA)) . If you don't want to label it a hack , a short descriptive phrase such as "short-term patch" or "temporary workaround" that emphasize that it is not a viable long-term arrange

Should I use "was" or "were" in the following context? A huge crowd were/was present there.

What do you call the objects that make you remember other things or that you keep to remember a moment or a place? I mean souvenirs, photographs, etc.

Get out of your own head How do I get out of my own head. Kindly explain this idiom! Answer More context would help. I interpret it to mean, Stop looking at things from such a self-centered point of view. Look at the whole picture. It's not all about you. For instance, if one were continually upset by minor rudeness from others, a way to get out of your own head is to stop focusing on your own hurt feelings but instead to consider what difficulties the other person struggles with, which will help you to overlook the petty rudeness and instead have compassion for the other person, even thinking of ways to encourage them and/or lessen their burdens.

A search in google clearly shows that the word tantalum is the correct spelling of the word and is widely used today. What made me curious was this Wikipedia entry wrote: Previously known as tantalium ... So, I searched when this word come into usage. A search to google Ngrams shows this: This clearly shows that a spike in the usage of the word tantalium in around 1802 which is about when 'tantalum' was discovered. Then slowly into the future closer to modern times, tantalium is now classified as obsolete. I have a few questions relating to this: 1) Why is tantalium obsolete and made tantalum surpass it? 2) There is a spike in usage of the word tantalium just after the discovery of this metal. Could the word originally be named tantalium? 3) There was a small amount of usage of the word tantalum in 1747 and 1754, well before the discovery of such metal. What could be the cause of this?

What's the difference between "afraid of + verb" and "afraid to + verb"? Isn't "afraid of" used more for generalisations and "afraid to" for a particular situation? For example: She's afraid of touching spiders. She's afraid to touch the spider. Answer With some verbs, there is certainly a distinct difference. She is afraid of taking the path that leads through the crocodile-infested swamp would usually be taken as meaning 'She is very worried that she might accidentally choose the dangerous route'. She is afraid to take the path that leads through the crocodile-infested swamp means 'She doesn't want to venture that way'. Afraid to V means anxious, perhaps cripplingly so, about a certain choice. So you wouldn't say 'I'm afraid to slip on a banana skin.' Afraid of Ving might mean the same, but means 'afraid that N might happen by chance' if that reading is possible. 'Afraid of slip

I am editing some copy, and I'm not sure how to handle these examples. Here is the structure that concerns me: As a consequence of the magic curse, the cakes dance the salsa[,] and the birds eat peanut butter. Now, because "the birds eat peanut butter" is an independent clause, it would normally gain a comma (,and the birds...). However, one could also perceive this as a list of two consequences of the magic curse. A two item list generally receives no comma. Thoughts? The style guide offers no opinion. Answer If the style guide you're using doesn't say otherwise, you may omit the comma if the independent clause is sufficiently short. Here's Kate Turabian on how to use commas in academic writing: Independent Clauses In a sentence containing two or more independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction ( and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet ), put a comma before the conjunction. This is not a hard-and-fast rule; no comma is needed between two short independe

In my current job, I'm constantly trying to figure out when the next thing I don't know that I don't know is going to bite me in the butt and cause me to have to rework my code. I've been working on a certain project for nearly a year, and still find out things that people have neglected to tell me, or are just considered tribal knowledge and everyone assumes you just "know", or is buried in the code (that I have to replicate in another language). It's not malicious, it's just how it is here, but it's incredibly frustrating. So far the closest word I've found that sort of describes this situation is agnotology (the study of culturally induced ignorance, coined in 1995), but that's not exactly it. What word adequately describes the situation where you don't know what you don't know? Answer You might try adapting Rumsfeld's "(un)known (un)known" approach , although you would be best served by depoliticizing it in this

Sometimes it’s possible to use either a noun adjunct or the possessive case. the shop door the shop’s door However, in certain phrases it’s not OK to do so. the ship’s crew (the ship crew is wrong ) The questions are: How can one find out what to use in such cases as “the shop(’s) door” when a noun adjunct option and the possessive case option are available? How can one know which option is wrong in order to avoid the construction “ship crew”? Is there a difference in meaning between (a) the shop door (b) the shop’s door?

I occasionally see the participle "proven" in mathematical texts, instead of "proved". Of course I realize that this a deliberate archaism, but I wanted to know if this is still used in books or articles in the USA, and whether a young American would find the form proven odd in 2012. (I'm asking because I have a not completely finished project for an article that would end with: we have thus proven that the zeros of the zeta function are on the line... ) Answer Some folks use proven in both the past participle and adjective alike, while others reserve that form to adjectival use and instead use proved only as the verb. Here’s such a distinction: He hadn’t yet proved it. Is that a proven fact? I don’t think that either would raise an eyebrow. Or rather, you could alternately use proven in the first case above, but you could not use proved in the second one. At least, that’s what my ear tells me. Also, I believe the verdict in Scots law is not proven , not

I'm in the process of working on technical documentation and the phrase "currently-installed" came up. The context of the orginal sentesnece is as follows: "You are not licensed to use the currently-installed product." Normally I see this written as "currently installed" but I was told the other way is correct because it is a compound adjective. Which form is correct? Answer From Grammarbook.com's rules about hyphen use: An often overlooked rule for hyphens: The adverb very and adverbs ending in -ly are not hyphenated. Incorrect: the very-elegant watch Incorrect: the finely-tuned watch This rule applies only to adverbs. The following two sentences are correct because the -ly words are adjectives rather than adverbs: Correct: the friendly-looking dog Correct: a family-owned cafe So because currently is an adverb ending in -ly , the compound adjective currently installed does not need to be hyphenated.

I have been going crazy trying to find this word and I just cant seem to be successful. The word is to state something kind of obvious. Here is an example on where/how to use it: Parent: "Do you want to go to school today son?" Child: "Dad I don't want to get out of bed, (the word) go to school." The word/phrase is meant to say that if the son doesn't want to get out of bed, surely he won't like to go to school. Please help. Answer Let alone Dad I don't want to get out of bed, let alone go to school. According to Cambridge Dictionary , let alone do something means: and to an even greater degree do something Example by Cambridge Dictionary : Brian would never even read a newspaper, let alone a book. Attribution: "Let Alone Do Something Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary." Cambridge Dictionary. Accessed April 03, 2018. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/let-alone-do-something .

The boat lies half-sunken in the bay. Sunken is an adjective, right? But in the previous sentence, it seems to be acting as adverb modifying lies . Should the sentence be: The boat lies half sunk in the bay.

I've seen all three versions for describing a person on stage performing comedy: "stand up", "standup", and "stand-up". My guess is that the term started as two words, but as the performance form itself became more established in the culture, the set of the two words together became perceived as a single unit. Reflecting that, in writing, some people even started merging the words or joining them with a hyphen. Based on that assumption, I'm extrapolating that it's a term in the midst of evolving, and so maybe there might not be an absolute answer on this. Still, I'd like to be consistent myself and settle on one. Is there any particular reason I should choose one over the others? Answer The Guardian Style Guide says: standup adjective, as in a standup comedian performing standup comedy; and noun: a standup performing standup Generally, it's a matter of grammar whether to space words or hyphenate. And generally, it's a matter of st

How can you tell if an introductory comma is used correctly? Here is an example. Outside, the rain was coming down hard. I do not know how to tell whether it's correct or not; is there a way to tell a difference?

Drunk is a word used for to describe getting high on alcohol. Similarly stoned is used when you are high on weed. What other words are there to get high on different things i.e. Love, friendship, bond, etc. ? Answer High in the context you have used it is informal. For a word that means similarly intoxicated but by the agency of love you might use - infatuated: infatuated To inspire or possess with a foolish or unreasoning passion, as of love. -- Dictionary.com To describe feeling high from friendship, there is no specialist word that I know of, you might modify the word though, for instance: Experienced a high the likes of which only friendship could bring... etc. or if you wanted a shorter phrase, perhaps: Platonic high Bond similarly I know of no specific word, so my suggestion would be you modify the word high, as above. If you want a more general word, that is less informal than high, you might try: Euphoria Psychology. a feeling of happiness, confidence, or well-being sometime

What distinctions can be made among the meanings of the words "inverse", "reverse", "converse", and, for good measure, "transverse" and "obverse"? Is it ever possible to use some of them interchangeably? Are they the same for purposes of casual discourse? Do the differences become more salient in a particular technical context, such as engineering, math, or linguistics? Answer inverse : opposite or contrary in position, direction, order, or effect in mathematics - something obtained by inversion or something that can be applied to an element to produce its identity element reverse : opposite primarily in direction in law - reverse or annul in printing - make print white in a block of solid color or half tone in electronics - in the direction that does not allow significant current in geology - denoting a fault or faulting in which a relative downward movement occurred in the strata situated on the underside of the fault plane conv

I live in Austria and I am a student in computer science and there is a specific thing that drives me bonkers: Everytime when a person in my vicinity or I am coversing with is mentioning the procuct "Microsoft Azure", they pronounce the word Azure /ˈeɪʒə/ (like Asia ) or /ˈeʃə/ (like pressure without the initial pr ). What is so odd is that not only users of this product or students pronounce it that way, but also representatives from MS who promote this product. So far the representatives I have met have all been non-native English speakers, though. Sometimes I have corrected the person in such a conversation and telling them it is pronounced /ˈazjʊə/ (like sure with an a the beginning and replacing the s with a zh sound. It is pronounced that way on Leo.org , a commonly used online dictionary. The primary proof I bring forward however in such a case is the song Rule, Britannia! , in which the word azure is pronounced /azjʊə/ like I mentioned. My question is: Am I ri

Question: Is it possible to start a grammatically-correct English sentence with the word "Than"? If no, what other English words share this property? Background: Trevor claimed that it is impossible. This is an attempt to verify or repudiate Trevor's claim. Answer Playing off WS2's comments, there's this excerpt from Cakes and Ale: or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard , a 1930 novel by W. Somerset Maugham: "Than Roy no one could show a more genuine cordiality to a fellow novelist whose name was on everybody’s lips, but no one could more genially turn a cold shoulder on him when idleness, failure or someone else’s success had cast a shade on his notoriety." (Source) This is, at least to me, a stylistic choice to invert the natural order of the sentence. It actually flows quite well to my ears, and though I've never used the construction myself, it sounds quite natural. So, based on this one example alone (and the others that can be formed from its exampl

What is the English word for a person who when they fail and realize their failure, they then regret and quickly correct their own behaviour without any wavering? Edit: I accepted an answer although the exact word I am looking for has not been found. I will change the answer should one be found. The closest matches are conscientious, repentant. To express exactly what I am looking for consider the scenario: You have had an argument, then you realize that what you did to your friend is wrong and he was correct. Without any thinking at that very second you run back to your friend saying: "I am sorry I have done wrong." asking for apology. It may take you 2 minutes to correct yourself - maybe you would go over your reasoning a few times to convince a good part of yourself to take over, and you would still be considered repentant and conscientious. But what I mean is a correction without a second thought once you realize you are wrong. Answer I would choose principled ; one who

Please help me determine whether or not to include a comma at the end of the third sentence: "I won't be talking to my ex at the party tonight." -"But what if she talks to you?" "I won't be listening to her either." -or- "I won't be talking to my ex at the party tonight." -"But what if she talks to you?" "I won't be listening to her, either." Thanks!

I have seen uses of must that appear to be in the simple past tense. Sometimes these seem grammatical, but sometimes not. Examples that help illustrate my confusion: He knew he must go to New York - sounds fine to me. He went to New York because he must - sounds questionable. Because he must go to New York, he bought plane tickets - sounds completely ungrammatical. He must go to New York - grammatical, but with no other verbs to provide context, can't interpret this as being past-tense. My question: is this past-tense use of must ever acceptable? Is it only acceptable in certain contexts - if so, what are those contexts and why? (Note - I'm not looking for had to . Have is a different verb, so had to expresses the same meaning as the past tense of must , but it itself is not the past tense of must .) Answer Rarely, must is used as a past tense. Belshazzar, by H. Rider Haggard, has we went because we must , in a prose style which is perhaps deliberately archaic to refl

Punctuation with “The question is…” '.', '?' or ' “… ?” ' Position of question mark when sentence doesn't end with question How do I punctuate a question within a statement? My son, who is in fourth grade, wrote the following sentence in response to a story he'd read: "Another question I had was why were people swimming with dolphins." His teacher gave him no credit for this sentence. She contended that the sentence must conclude with a question mark. I believe that the sentence represents a declaration and not a question, and that the concluding period is appropriate and correct. Would someone kindly help?

Can "drive someone home" be used when the vehicle is a motorbike? Can I use "ride someone home" with the same meaning as "drive someone home"? Answer Well the original definition of "to drive" was to compel something to move by force. For instance, the phrase "I drive my friend" could have an entirely different connotation if you add "to succeed in sports". Now you're driving him morally, not within a car. The word drive is, in this way, very flexible. The original definitions extends to metaphors and analogies, meaning any time you're influencing something towards a certain ends you can consider it driving. Therefore, yes- you can grammatically say you "drive you friend" on a motorbike. The reason it sounds strange is because any time you're talking about a motorbike you expect to hear the word "ride", not "drive". This is simply a common cultural pattern. In your specific case, howe

For example, if Peter is my source, should I say: Peter mentioned his '... unquenchable thirst, a fatigued body...' as being part of the reason for his actions. Or would I have to leave out the ellipses? Answer No, you would leave out the ellipses there. The Purdue OWL has a page about this; it lists this example: According to Foulkes's study, dreams may express 'profound aspects of personality'. Even if you aren't quoting Peter's remarks in their entirety, you don't need to use elipses, because your sentence is structured in a way that shows you are only using a small segment of his overall quotation (much like the preceding example). The same site goes on to say: If you omit a word or words from a quotation, you should indicate the deleted word or words by using ellipsis marks . So, if Peter had said: I quit because of my unquenchable thirst, a bad blister on my foot, and a fatigued body. then you might say: Peter mentioned his 'unquenchable thir

"Thought you'd never ask" is "I thought you'd never ask" with "I" omitted. "Hope this helps" is "I hope this helps" with "I" omitted. In English grammar, normally every sentence should have a subject, right? My first thought is that these two examples are so often used that they are like set phrases. But these are not really set phrases. You can alter the words after "thought" and "hope". Another possible explanation is the tendency to drop the subject if it is the first person pronoun. It seems that in many languages, such as Spanish, Italian and Japanese, the first person subject is usually omitted. Maybe English is going the same way? (Not exactly the same, since in Italian, verb forms change according to the person, so the subject is not necessary to understand who one's referring to.) And, apparently, such omission is more common in spoken English than in written English. Are there more exa

It’s pity to learn our own country is viewed as a bad example for other countries not to follow. I found the word “ Japan-lite problems ” in the article of Time magazine (August 25 issue) titled “ Six lessons Japan can teach the West ”. It goes as follows: “We have consistently taken the view that the Western world was suffering from ‘ Japan-lite' problems : weak money supply growth, high levels of debt, lots of deleveraging, structurally weak growth and a rapidly deteriorating fiscal position. Given recent economic developments, perhaps ‘ lite' should be replaced with ‘heavy' …The West is increasingly looking like a bad version of Japan. And, like Japan, our political leaders are offering few answers.” I understand “-lite” is used as a suffix. But I don’t understand what “Japan-lite”really means. COD (10th Ed.) defines “-lite” as “suffix forming names of rocks, minerals and fossils. From this, I hazard to guess “Japan-lite problems” implies petrified economic status of the

I understand what the sentence The house is a full day’s journey from here means, but I’m wondering what day’s is short for in this expression. It doesn’t match any pattern I know. A couple of examples: He’s = he is Let’s = let us Mary’s car = the car belongs to Mary Day’s = it sounds to me like something belongs to a day and this is what I don’t understand. Shouldn’t it be The house is a full day of journey from here instead? Answer The fourth example is the correct interpretation of day's , but with two things to keep in mind. First, in your conclusion you flipped the words around incorrectly * ; the journey "belongs to" the day , not the other way around. You could re-write the sentence as: The house is a journey of a full day from here. Second, while the journey is "of a day," this does not necessarily mean the day "owns" or "possesses" the journey; grammatically, time periods are simply treated as possessive . * "A full day o

Here is the context: The network has geographically distributed upload endpoints, featuring end-to-end encryption as well as patent-pending routing and optimization technology, letting Box process uploads at a speed up to 10 times faster than currently possible. "From an end user perspective, this is moving the needle ," said Jeff Queisser, vice president of technical operations at Box. Answer I believe this is a reference to the old analog Vu meter used in audio recording. Vu stood for Volume Units. When recording, some audio sources were not even loud enough to make the needle move off the bottom- in other words it was too faint to be of much use to record. So saying that something is moving the needle means that it is enough to register or make a difference to the user- enough for the user to take note of

Not only is my seventh grader using this phrase, but her teachers are as well. I suppose it means I totally agree with you and you totally agree with me but it sounds like there is a subtle Is that okay? at the end with the right part. What do you think?

I'm fairly sure it's the former, but it sounds even more stilted than the usual cases in which "I" is less common, but more correct.

The answer to this question outlines a general rule for pluralising acronyms: The general rule is that you should not use an apostrophe to form the plurals of nouns, abbreviations, or dates made up of numbers: just add -s (or -es, if the noun in question forms its plural with - es). However, it is not clear from that answer what should be done if the noun in question uses does not end in either -s or -es . What is the correct plural abbreviation for Curriculum Vitae? I think the plural is Curriculum Vitarum (or possibly Curricula Vitae), which would make the plural abbreviation CV too. Use of the -s suffix suggests Curriculum Vitaes (or possibly Curriculums Vitae) which seems wrong. What is correct?

I've been spotting what seems to me misplaced modifiers in professional writing, so I would love to get some tips on the following examples: He'd sit until the last moment, watching them draw near. Isn't "watching them draw near" modifying he? Then shouldn't it come at the very beginning of the sentence? It looks misplaced, but I'm doubting myself since the sentence was in a story written by a professional writer. There is the sound of rain on the roof, intensifying, hammering at the gutters. Is it okay if the participle and the noun are separated by a prepositional phrase? my spirits are dreadful, owing entirely to the Horrors of every night It seems to me that in this case, the participial clause is describing the state of my spirits being dreadful. Is it possible for a participial phrase to describe not just one word, but the entire clause? The number of new UC students from other states and nations will continue to increase this fall, extending a trend

I’m making subtitles for a Norwegian TV show, and there is a very common slang word in Norwegian called ass . (Yeah, never mind the English meaning of that, it’s not pronounced the same.) The etymology of the word is actually that it’s a shortened form of the word altså (which means something like "therefore", "thus", or "verily" , the latter sense being where the slang meaning derives from.) Example: Jeg liker det ikke, ass. I like that not ???? Which means, “I don’t like it.” The purpose of the word ass is hard to explain, but it sort of adds some sincerity to the sentence. Without it, the sentence sounds kind of naked. A bit like English indeed , but indeed doesn’t work for a negative statement like this, and it certainly doesn’t work for informal language. The word is extremely common in spoken Norwegian, especially among young people. Some more examples: Jeg vet ikke, ass . (I don’t know.) Jeg vet det, ass . (I know.) Du må prøve det, ass . (