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This is a question on capitalization. Proper nouns are capitalized. But how can I tell which parts of a term constitute a proper noun? Take, for example, the nickname for traveler's diarrhea (sorry, the first thing that came to my mind). I've seen it written as Montezuma's Revenge (proper noun), as well as Montezuma's revenge (common noun). Which is correct? What about a journalist referring to a specific set of letters sent by prisoners -- would he call them the Guantanamo Letters or the Guantanamo letters ? Or is it simply a matter of context? Answer Proper nouns should name specific people, places or things - "specific" being the key word here. In some cases specificity is immediately apparent, e.g. in the term "Singapore Airlines" (after all, there is only one airline with that name!). In other cases, there is a grey area and I would say that fame/notoriety also plays a role in determining specificity. To use your example, one would refer to ...

Let's say a friend of mine tells me the following: Nice! Let’s meet up for a drink this week. And I want to say, "Sure let's do it. I will propose a few ..., and you tell me if either of them works for you." I cannot come up with an idiom or other expression that works. Answer I would say I'll send a couple of dates and times. Let me know if any of them work for you.

You have some data and some code that operates on it. The order in which you process each data element doesn't matter, and hence the task is parallelizable. The order of computation on each element doesn't matter , or the computation is _ __ _ (not parallelizable!) Answer We've got a lot of pseudo-synonyms here. For the heck of it, I'll try to relate them. The term that describes the notion of unimportance of order is (unequivocally, in my mind) sequence-independence . A set of operations that are all orthogonal are (in other words) independent and therefore sequence-independent . A function over a sequence for which the order of the sequence is immaterial is commutative . If the function consists of a fold of another function of lower arity, then the latter must be associative . Sequence-independent operations are parallelizable and can therefore be run asynchronously . You can also say that the function has unspecified evaluation order , which implies unreliable...

Differences among words describing someone who is expert in many things I just wondered, what could we call a person with deep knowledge in various fields? For example, computers, music, sports, etc. I think I could use sage , but it wouldn't be appropriate if someone is experienced in multiple fields. Answer I guess they could be called a polymath or renaissance man as defined here.

I have a document dated 05/05/2012. What should I say? Based on the document from 05 May. Based on the document from 5th May. Based on the document from 05 of May. Answer Different organizations, publications, and contexts will call for different style guidelines. Wikipedia , for example, has international readership, and does not use ordinal suffixes, articles, or leading zeros, but allows free interchange of the month and day order, e.g. Based on the documents from 5 May… or Based on the documents from May 5… with the [month day] format probably preferred in America. Other styles can be used, but should be chosen based on what is appropriate for the audience.

Is there a word to describe a scenario where two people having a conversation utter the same word/phrase together, simultaneously, and unconsciously? Something else than just a coincidence.

I know that words like login and payoff are properly nouns but I increasingly notice many (not at all uneducated) people use them as verbs: Will you payoff your credit card this month? and Please check this when you login. To me (a non-native English user), that seems incorrect because separating the core noun from a preposition is what I was taught: Please check this when you log in . (My emphasis) Is this use proper or not? Answer I agree with you. (I am a native English speaker.) It is more correct to say "log in" or "pay off" when using these words as verbs. However, usage will dictate whether these eventually become solid words, even when used as verbs. Until that time, however, it is better to not spell them solid when used as verbs.

I have a question about naming of terminal states of a task regarding to computing area. Think of a task that is being processed by some system. There're several possible states the task can be ended up in. I want to find short (one-worded if possible) and unambigous names for these particular states: When the task is finished with success, i.e. it's completely processed. Options: Succeeded , Successful , Completed , ??? When the task is intentionally canceled by some external "will", e.g. by user or by another system. There's nothing erroneus in this state, because everything was ok during processning and intent to stop was conscious. I think Canceled is the only option. When the task is stopped because of reaching some invalid inner state (e.g. due to errors) which cannot be properly handled by processing system to continue the task. Options: Aborted / Faulted /??? There's an example of such naming scheme in Microsoft .Net Framework for Task objects - Task...

Why do we often say "kith and kin" and not "kin and kith"? I was taught to believe that family comes first and the other later, and I do still believe in what I was taught. Answer I'll try to satisfy your curiosity. Kith originally meant your native land. So kith and kin was "country and relatives". The idea behind the phrase was that country is more important than family. This sentiment promoted patriotism and people were motivated to leave their families and serve their countries. Later, kith evolved to mean your society, or your friends and relatives. Since the relatives part is already covered in kin , the kith in the phrase only stands for friends now, and nobody using it is implying that friends are more important than family. [source - oxford]

What's the difference in usage between suasive and persuasive ? I just read the former used, here on this StackExchange, where the latter would have worked perfectly, IMO. Is there a subtle distinction between the two words? Can anyone give me an example where using suasive would be compellingly better than using persuasive ? And finally, as I'd never seen the word suasive before today, does that mean suasive is archaic, or just used in a particular context? Answer Suasive is an adjective that, in Linguistics (Grammar), "denotes a class of English verbs, for example, insist , whose meaning includes the notion of persuading and that take a subordinate clause whose verb may either be in the subjunctive or take a modal." Persuasive is an adjective as well, that means being "good at persuading someone to do or believe something through reasoning or the use of temptation: an informative and persuasive speech. " OR " She was very persuasive! " The...

In a verbal construction, like scuba diving , what is 'scuba' held to be? I like scuba diving. Above, 'scuba diving' is a gerund. I like to scuba dive. Above, 'to scuba dive' is the infinitive. Is 'scuba' considered a noun adjunct in a verbal construction like this? And there are plenty of other examples like this: to skate board to spear fish to space walk to home school Answer Scuba (occasionally SCUBA) is an acronym, standing for s elf- c ontained u nderwater b reathing a pparatus, and it is occasionally used as a noun meaning that type of equipment. For example, in Reef Fishes of Hong Kong by Y Sadovy and A Cornish Fishes were recorded by underwater visuaL census surveys, using SCUBA , and collected by fishing gears such as nets, hooks, traps and anaesthetics. More often its used to modify other nouns, dive , tank , lessons, and even the somewhat-redundant equipment . In these cases it is thus lexically a noun but functionally a noun modifier, a ...

Do you use a question mark when a sentence starts as a question but then turns into a statement? For example, "Can you explain this to me, because I don't understand the second part." Another example would be, "What did he just say, because I couldn't hear him over the noise of the television." I usually use a period but don't know if that is correct.

I'm trying to improve on the last part of this sentence: Mirabeau pointed out that the text was not his, although he did not provide the names of its authors, either. My first instinct is: Mirabeau pointed out that the text was not his, although he neither provided the names of its authors . But something feels wrong here, and I can't explain why. Any ideas?

There are three ways I know to pronounce the -ed at the end of an adjective: /t/ as in cracked . /d/ as in lined . /ɪd/ as in naked I realise naked is a special case because, as etymonline states , it comes for Old English nacod , so the suffix isn't added. This answer shows the pattern of pronunciation of -ed in all other cases. However it doesn't explain why wicked ends with /ɪd/ (or /id/ or /əd/ depending on the dialect). Etymonline says that wicked comes from OE wicca , so the d wasn't already there. Why do we pronounce wicked as /ˈwɪkɪd/ and not /ˈwɪkt/? Answer According to A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language , 1839, The adjectives naked, wicked, picked (pointed), booked, crooked, forked, tusked, tressed, and wretched , are not derived from verbs, and are therefore pronounced in two syllables . The same may be observed of scabbed, crabbed, chubbed, stubbed, shagged, snagged, ragged, scrubbed, dogged, rugged, scragged, hawke...

When did it become correct to add an ‘s’ to a singular possessive already ending in ‘s’? Which singular names ending in “s” form possessives with only a bare apostrophe? Which one is correct? I thought the latter would be correct but apparently the former is always used; why? Edit: Another (confusing) example: Charles'(s?) law

One way to address Bill Gates with respect would be to simply write Sir, but I don't want other readers to get confused about who I'm referring to. How do I refer to him with respect without creating any confusion? Another way I thought of is to just use "Mr. Gates", which is appropriate and it doesn't even create confusion. But what if I do really want to make use of "Sir" if I feel this conveys more respect? What would be correct, Sir Bill or Sir William? Also, I want to know if my idea that "Sir" conveys more respect is really correct or if it is just my misconception and I'd sound like someone who doesn't know English well and doesn't know the proper usage of "Sir" ? Others on the blog are simply referring to and addressing him by writing Bill or Bill Gates but I don't want to copy others if they're not using proper etiquette.

Which of the following is grammatical? Can you please let me know by when you want it completed. Can you please let me know when you want it completed by. I am preferring the latter, but will really appreciate your professional advice.

If I have a sentence like: The royal family is extremely rich: The sled that pulls the princess is shaped like a golden swan, the celebrations last 3 days, and the bride and groom walk under a canopy made of purple velvet embroidered with pearls. Is a colon the proper punctuation to use after rich , or would a semicolon be more suitable? Why? Answer Although both are independent clauses, a colon is the more appropriate choice here because a compound list follows the initial proclamation and serves to support its assertion.

In the past — or at least, when I was in elementary school — periods/full stops were followed by two spaces. Lately, it's become more and more common to see just one space. In the modern world, should we still use two spaces between sentences, or is just one okay? Does it depend on the situation? Or are both acceptable, with the choice simply coming down to personal preference? Answer Actually, I feel a few of the other answers here (and even the question) are a bit simplistic: there's more to this issue than is indicated by the latest editions of the Chicago Manual of Style or Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style . In lieu of a very long answer, let me point to the (long) Wikipedia articles on exactly this issue: My (inadequate) summary would be something like the following: The traditional typesetters' convention was to use a (single) longer space between sentences than between words. For instance, CMoS 1911 still recommends a 3-em space between words and ...

I came across with this sentence and it cast me doubt the usage of "most" and "the most" The sentence states: "But what I remembered most is moving a lot" Would it change the meaning of the sentence if I interchange "most" with "the most"? I am a little confused about when to use these words. Previous to this post I searched for the difference between these words but I think I need not only the definition but examples to distinguish their usage. Thank you Answer "But what I remembered most is moving a lot" is correct, with or without "the". Although "the most" is the superlative , preferable. Here, "most" is used as an adverb modifying the verb "remember", meaning "to the greatest extent". There may be other examples, where it can mean "extremely" as in the following:"it was most kind of you", "that is most probably correct". As an adjective w...

What’s the right version of these two? Half of the students doesn’t bother to show up. Half of the students don’t bother to show up. Or are both right? The related question Is two-thirds plural? discusses some relevant concepts, but the answer is very general, and it's not clear how to apply it here since "half" is a singular noun, while "two" is a plural noun. Barrie England's answer there says that in "2/3 of the pizza was eaten," singular agreement is appropriate because "the emphasis is likely to be on the amount of pizza eaten, and not on the number of individual thirds. In contrast, in [2/3 of the visitors were men] the emphasis is on the number of visitors who were men, so plural concord ... is required." What does it mean to put "emphasis" on "the amount" vs. "the number"? If "half of the students" is just an approximate or uncertain percentage (like "between 51% and 55%"), rath...

The phrase "who knows what" and other variations of it refer to unknown things, for a lack of a better descriptor. When writing a story in the past tense, would this phrase change? His pocket contained a key ring, spare coins, folded-up slips of paper, and who knows what else. Compared to: His pocket contained a key ring, spare coins, folded-up slips of paper, who knew what else. Is using the present tense considered inconsistent? Is one preferable to the other? Answer who knows what and who knows what else are English idiomatic expressions. (I know them from British English, but the citations below suggest they are also common in American English.) who knows what One or more things described with no detail. Our junk drawer has old remotes, instruction manuals, and who knows what else in it. You're supposed to be doing your homework, but instead you're slacking off and doing who knows what ! Because it's an idiomatic expression, it's generally treated as ...

What is the difference between a gerund and present participle ? When should we use a gerund and when should we use a present participle ? Answer The distinction between a participle and a gerund is troublesome. It looks as if the difference is to do with parts of speech or something similar. In fact, the real distinction has to do with the grammatical relations (syntactic functions). In traditional grammar, a gerund is an -ing form of a verb that heads a phrase functioning as a: Subject of a clause Object of a verb Complement of a preposition In all other situations, an -ing form of the verb is considered a participle. Phrases headed by participles are often modifiers in clause or phrase structure. Some modern grammars such as the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002) regard the distinction between gerunds and participles as unhelpful, because it blurs the line between what type of word the -ing form is and what job it is doing in the sentence. They use the term gerun...

Most dictionaries seem to describe 'there' as an adverb. Oxford online dictionary definition Is this true? "Last year we went to Paris. We stayed there for three nights." In sentences like this 'there' is taking the place of a preposition and a noun - in this case 'in Paris'. So why is it referred to as an adverb? Is there a case for describing it as a preposition? It is a substitute for a prepositional phrase ('on the table'. 'in the room', 'to Paris', 'in Paris' etc), and like a preposition, and unlike an adverb, it may be modified by 'right' or 'straight'. "We flew straight there." "The book is right there - in front of you." Prepositional phrases So, is 'there' (and I suppose we could extend this to its interrogative: 'where') an adverb, a preposition or some other category of word? Answer As is well-recognised by linguists, dictionaries are not a good place to st...

According to Google at least, the word "cupboard" originated in late Middle English as denoting a board that held cups. Since then, the word has evolved to mean a kind of cabinet. My question is, given its origin and spelling, why do we pronounce "cupboard" with a silent "p"? Has the pronunciation simply evolved because "cup-board" is too awkward to say, or is there a deeper pronunciation rule that I'm not aware of? Answer There are sev­er­al fac­tors in play here. Dif­fi­cult con­so­nant clus­ters are of­ten re­duced in rapid speech or over time; think of friend­ship , spend­thrift , twelfth , months . Much of the dif­fer­ence be­tween an un­voiced and a voiced stop in English is ac­tu­al­ly not its voic­ing but its as­pi­ra­tion, and be­cause one nor­mal­ly on­ly as­pi­rates stops that are both un­voiced and which be­gin a stressed syl­la­ble, you have just lost the prin­ci­pal dis­tin­guish­ing fea­ture. When you have two con­sec­u­tive s...

Can anybody tell me the difference between the following two sentences: He saw me talking to her. He saw me talk to her. Please let me know if both the statements are valid and grammatically correct. If valid, please explain the meaning of both the statements and what is the difference between the two. Answer These are complements of sense verbs (the first case discussed in this answer ) and have a number of peculiarities. Of particular interest is the fact that the non-volitional sense verbs can take all four varieties of complement . Which includes gerund and infinitive complements, like these. The difference between infinitive and gerund complements, "roughly speaking", according to McCawley , is that gerunds correspond to events, while infinitives correspond to situation types. There is minimal or no difference between the meanings of He saw me talking to her. He saw me talk to her. because of facts about vision and conversation, and the usages of complements. He saw me...

What is "Where to go" in the sentence "Where to go is the question." Is it a adverbial phrase or a relative clause? And what is "Why go" in the sentence "Why go when you can stay?" - is it a clause?

In all the Germanic languages the words "god" and "good" are homomorphic - they sound almost identical: God and goed in Dutch, Gott and gut in German, guð and gott in Icelandic, Gud and god in Norwegian, and, finally, Gud and god or gott in Swedish. What is the Proto-IndoEuropean root of this word, and where do we see it in other languages?

I am looking for the term that describes words that are defined as "of or pertaining/related to ______" or "the study of_____". An example of this would be sartorial which is of or pertaining to suits.

People will normally say, "It's raining". Why can't it be, "Rain is coming?"

I'm tall, and so's my wife. I looking for some way of understanding this kind of and so construction. Is it equivalent to the following? I'm tall, and tall is my wife. You could say, alternatively: I'm tall, and my wife is tall. I'm tall, and my wife is also. I'm tall, and also my wife is. (maybe???) So why is the 'is' moved before 'my wife" with the and so construction?

Why is it not right to say: He speaks like his father does. But it’s quite correct to say: He speaks like his father. He speaks as his father does.

What term describes a non-offensive substitute for a swear word? For example, Battlestar Galactica used frack instead of fuck . Another example is the use of snap instead of shit . I think I may have heard a single-word term used to describe such alternate non-offensive words before, but I don’t know what it is. Answer The general term for these is euphemism . The use of a word or phrase to replace another with one that is considered less offensive or less vulgar than the word or phrase it replaces. Edit: just found another term: minced oath . I've never actually heard this term used , mind you, but still, it's a closer match than plain "euphemism".

An exam question is driving me crazy. Find the mistake in the following: Four years are a long time to spend away from family and friends. Literally everyone solved it by replacing are with is . Could it be "a long" to "long"? Answer Four years [ are / is ] a long time to spend away from family and friends. You have several things happening here: The main clause is a copular clause. A subject that is realized by a measure phrase ("Four years"). A predicative complement ( PC ) that is a singular noun phrase ("a long time . . ."). Copular clauses seem to have their own rules (my personal opinion), and a native English speaker usually has to rely on their ear, especially on matters like this. For subject-verb agreement, some of the major factors are the context and the speaker's intent (besides the formal number of the subject). Specifically, in your example, the subject noun phrase ("Four years") is plural, and it is a measure ph...

The plural "guys" definitely is, at least here in San Francisco — I'm often hearing all-girl companies here being greeted with 'Hi guys, how are you doing?'. How about the singular guy? Is it universally assumed that 'the guy who will be doing this' can be either guy or gal? Answer "You guys" is a familiar, all-inclusive way of addressing a group of men or women directly. That said, there are some important distinctions you must understand: "You guys" is more likely to be said in women => women or men => men or women => men or mixed-group => mixed-group contexts. It is less likely to be used in men => women contexts, but is still heard and would probably not occasion any confusion or merriment. The singular "guy" is another animal. It refers to males. It is also used to draw gender distinctions in a general way. A guy walked into my store and asked for some cigarettes. There is no doubt that this is a man ...

I am hearing the use of this odd-sounding construction more and more frequently as of late. For example: I didn't used to smoke. I didn't used to work for McDonald's. I was trying to think of alternatives to this phrase but all I could think of was previously : I didn't previously smoke. I didn't previously work for McDonald's. That said, to me , the use of "previously" instead implies an event took place that changed the fact in the statement. In other words, to me, "previously" is more similar to "prior to (something)," whereas "didn't used to" refers to the general past . Are there any better alternatives to that of which I have already thought? Answer I see nothing wrong or odd with the following sentence and its meaning. I didn't use to smoke This statement means I was a non-smoker in the past. It implies that today I smoke on a regular basis. When we want to contrast a repeated action in the past that is no...

I was watching a movie the other day and one character said to another, "Don't let's fight" instead of "Let's not fight." Is this proper usage, and if so, what is the grammatical rule that applies here?

Does anyone know when and how fail became a noun? I'd love to see one of those charts that shows the date of origin and subsequent growth of this usage. Answer "Fail" has existed as a noun and has been part of our lexicon for a long time , such as in the phrase "without fail." However, it gained a new meaning in the recent years with the fail Internet meme, where it started as an interjection first, capable of standing on alone in a sentence. In fact, the first entry for "fail" to arrive on Urban Dictionary described fail as "an interjection used when one disapproves of something, or a verb" and one of the two examples cited was: You actually bought that? FAIL. If the "FAIL" above was a noun, that sentence would not be syntactically correct. Nouns cannot be used in that manner. It would be like saying: You positioned your lips to form an upward curve? SMILE. We understand what is meant but it's not syntactically correct. No o...

I'm always quite confused to choose which word should I put in the sentence like this/that :) That/This is not a problem at all. To be or not to be, this/that is the question. I know which one I should choose in terms of positioning. But still I don't have that/this feeling for not an object. Answer Historically, "that" was much more common for non-physical referents, except where it was cataphoric, i.e. referred to something which hadn't yet been clarified. So To be or not to be? That is the question but This is the question: to be or not to be. "This" would be used to emphasise the immediacy of the referent, or where there were two things being distinguished: I saw somebody rummaging in a rubbish bin. That appalled me. but I saw several people smoking, and one person rummaging in a rubbish bin. This appalled me. ("This" is possible in the first case, and in my judgment brings the activity more to the fore). I think there has been a trend in ...

Is there a word for a feeling of impending doom or dread?

Like the title, I randomly checked my son's textbook one day and found out some interesting things, like: "I'm on a bus," "I'm in a car," "I'm on a scooter," "I'm on a skateboard," "I'm on a bike," etc. My son asked why is it "IN a car" only? I thought about it and just can't come up with any idea. Maybe it's more comfortable for the seats in a car? Like you'd sink into it? Could that be the reason? Anyway, just want to know: is there any rule when it comes to preposition-using? Or is all we can do is to recite them all not knowing why? :) Answer There aren't specific rules, but there are general principles — each preposition has a particular "feel" to it, which guides the use in particular situations. And of course there are plenty of idiomatic expressions which simply abandon those principles entirely. For the question at hand, I would suggest the following principles: ...

What is the equivalent to "Grandecito" in English? At first it seems redundant because in English you cannot say, "big-small" or "small-big". I have heard, "its biggie". I also have heard, "biggish", but the latter seems to be tied to more of a "kind of big" but not "big".

On this one, etymonline really let me down. It says: dude 1883, "fastidious man," New York City slang of unknown origin. The vogue word of 1883, originally used in reference to the devotees of the "aesthetic" craze, later applied to city slickers, especially Easterners vacationing in the West However, Google Books research shows prior use in a few cases, including Wit and humor of the age (1880) : “There are three kinds of dudes in New York”. So, knowing not whom to turn to, I ask you: what more can be said of the origin of dude ? Why was it first introduced to refer to “devotees of the ‘aesthetic’ craze”? And, how did it later progress in the language? Answer Dude has its origins in what Shakespeare would call a "clothes wearing man". Dodge's 1901 St. Nicholas, Volume 28, Part 2 cites an even earlier appearance in print: 1876, with common usage beginning as early as 1873. It goes further to suggest that dude is "undoubtedly" derived fr...

"Slut" can have two meanings: an immoral woman, or prostitute a dirty and slovenly woman I would like a term for men that is the equivalent of the second meaning. Is there a term for describing a man that is dirty and slovenly? Answer "Slob" captures the second meaning for either sex. Are you looking for a term that would be used only for men?

I'm from Australia where we don't have so many kinds of precipitation. I'm familiar with these: rain hail snow sleet As I understand it, sleet refers to frozen rain but I'm not totally familiar with it. Right now I'm not in Australia but Georgia, the former Soviet republic. And at the moment it's raining but not just rain. There's also some mushy snowflakes falling. I've never seen this before and wonder if we even have a word for it in English. Would it be referred to as sleet after all? It's 2 degrees above zero centigrade now so frozen rain seems unlikely. Answer Sorry, I believe the answer is "sleet": Rain and snow mixed (also known as sleet ) is precipitation composed of rain and partially melted snow. This precipitation can occur where the temperature in the lower part of the atmosphere is slightly above the freezing point (0 °C or 32 °F). Its METAR code is RASN. Meteorologists around my geographical area (New England) refer to it ...

Is there a word for a shared idiolect or a dialect understood by only two people?

As best as I can tell, a good example is sociopath : sociopath — from socio- on model of psychopath socio- — combining form of [Latin] socius pathos — from [Greek] pathos Hence, sociopath is a word coined from roots found in two different languages. Is there a good term that describes this? Answer I came across the term "hybrid word" when I was researching quadraphonic (which is one). This phrase would work for your situation. Plus, "sociopath" is listed as an example of a hybrid word in the linked page.

There appears to be some disagreement over what function yes and no perform in the following sentences: Yes , you are right. No , you are mistaken. According to ODO ( yes , no ), they are being used as exclamations which are presumably the same as interjections . Webster ( yes , no ) and Macmillan ( yes , no ), on the other hand, reckon that they are adverbs . Wiktionary ( yes , no ) chucks another spanner by stating that yes is being used as an adverb while no is being used as an interjection . Wiktionary also links to a Wikipedia article on "yes and no" which seemingly disagrees with both options. The words yes and no are not easily classified into any of the eight conventional parts of speech. Although sometimes classified as interjections, they do not qualify as such, and they are not adverbs. They are sometimes classified as a part of speech in their own right , sentence words, word sentences, or pro-sentences, although that category contains more than yes and ...

As the title says, I've heard two possible meanings for turning down the air conditioning: It could mean set the target temperature lower (i.e. colder) or make it work less (i.e. warmer). Turning down the heat makes it colder, but both meanings are in agreement there. Answer It's common to use "turn down" for any variable device, to mean reduce it's power. And with a dial like this: Then it would be easy to see "L" as down relative to "M", and so on. However, with a thermostat-based control like this: Then it would be easy to see "20°C" as down relative to "25°C", especially since the button you press to go from 25 to 20 is an arrow pointing down. However, if the air-conditioner was noisy, then you'd get a decrease in volume that would match the metaphor of down better than up . If you combine heating and air-conditioning in the same control, then it would be even easier to see it that way. However, some such cont...

If I wanted to describe all of the people close to someone such as their close friends, family, relatives, and spouse/significant other, how would I do so with one noun? The simplest 'noun' that comes to mind is using the term "friends and family", e.g. "He sought consolation from his friends and family during the tragic incident." Is there a more specific/powerful noun for this? An example of a loanword for this would be the Hawaiian Ohana . I might be missing something obvious here, but I'd like to know what you guys think. I'm not looking for a specific answer, and loanwords would be great as well - possibly better! edit: I don't care if it's a single word, actually. Answer You can call all of them as family . Because you can also call your friends that is very close to you with kinship terms like "brother","sister" etc. It is not a true kinship but it is called fictive kinship. Also, kinfolk (and folks ) is used in...

Look at this sentence: There was also found a significant interaction effect between gender and age groups The part "There was also found" gives about 50 million records when you google it with quotations, but the editor of the journal I submitted my manuscript in, wrote in the review that this sentence "is awkwardly phrased" . I have two questions: 1) Is this sentence really awkwardly phrased? 2) What would be a good paraphrasing for the sentence Answer It is most certainly awkward, at the very least. What you're looking for is We also found X or X was also found but not there. . . Unfortunately, Google is not the right tool for deciding whether something is correct English or not. Google NGrams, which query a corpus of published works as opposed to random internet musings, while far from perfect , are a much better choice: As you can see in the image above there are relatively few occurrences of there was also found and essentially none in the latter par...

In Italy, you have two options to say "I love you", I'll try to translate them the best I can: I love you ( Ti amo. ) I want you to be ok ( Ti voglio bene. ) The fact is that in English, both ti amo and ti voglio bene are translated as I love you . But in Italian, there are lot of differences: I love you is used to express love for another person which is, or you want her/him to be, your girlfriend/boyfriend. I want you to be ok is used to express still something love-related but just a little bit less love-related (It's hard to say it). I want you to be OK is used by parents to their sons/daughters or vice versa or by a friend to another friend. I do watch some TV shows in English and I find that sometimes two friends tell each other I love you and they just go back to their jobs (= I want you to be ok ) and sometimes one of them says I love you and the other understands that he/she wants her/him to be his/her girlfriend/boyfriend and that it's love-relate...

With Friends Like These A few months ago, a couple good friends brought up a topic they know I disdain, and kept prodding me for my opinion on it. They wouldn't let up, until finally I proclaimed " [It's] terrible! ", to which they replied, scheming, " Don't you mean horrible? ", and I said, " Yeah, horrible ! ". They both burst out laughing. Apparently, I pronounce horrible weirdly, and these goofs just wanted to hear me say it¹. I struggle with IPA, but my understanding is in General American the word is pronounced with a proper o sound, like whore - ible . On the other hand, I pronounce it with an ar sound, like in hard , HARH - ible . They also told me I do the same with orange ( arrnje )². Comparing Oranges to Oranges In the intervening months, I've polled a bunch of other people, and almost all of them pronounce the o like an o . And their orange s start with the sound in oar . One issue I have with these comparisons is that I do...

The first time I saw this antiquated form was in Steeleye Span's interpretation of The Elf Knight ballad, but I tend to see it now and then and I don't quite know how it is used. Lady Isabel sits a-sewing Fine flowers in the valley When she heard the elf-knight's horn a-blowing As the rose is blown What is the name, role, history (how it came to be, and how it died) of that prefix? Does it affect the gerund in any way, modifying its meaning or such, or is it just "the way it was spoken back then"? Is this related to the indefinite article a put in front of normal nouns, treating the gerund as any noun, or is it something completely different? Answer It's not a gerund; it’s an ordinary present participle describing an ongoing action. That is, the horn is blowing; it’s not “[she heard] a blowing [of the horn]”. Sewing is more obviously not a noun in the poem. The a- prefix is there purely for rhythm and metre. It signifies nothing. Perhaps surprisingly it ...

Of late I have noticed British people using the following sort of construct: John and Jane make such a cute couple because John always wears a similar hat to Jane. To my ear, that is ungrammatical, or at least nonsensical, because John seems to have mistaken his wife for a hat! John’s hat cannot be similar to Jane; it can only be similar to Jane’s hat. For me, that sentence must therefore be recast as this: John and Jane make such a cute couple because John always wears a hat similar to Jane’s. That way the hat is no longer similar to her, merely to hers. Is the former formulation actually grammatical, or is it a common mistake or simple carelessness? Doesn’t it confuse people? Is it fit for formal writing? How long has this been going on? To the American ear, it sounds really messed up, like it is making a wrong comparison. It’s like they have forgotten about the possessive case, which is the only one that makes sense here. Edit Here are actual “similar X to Y” instances by British a...