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In non-finite clauses the verb must be in a non-finite form (such as an infinitive, participle, gerund or gerundive), and it is consequently much more likely that there will be no subject expressed, i.e. that the clause will consist of a (non-finite) verb phrase on its own. What rules govern the omission of the subject? What about in the following, can the phrase ever be a clause? could be important I think so because "be" is the bare infinitive , so the verb is non-finite.

I've checked in LGWSE by Douglas Biber, Stig Johannson et al (2004) but failed to find the explanation as to what the cases of usage of the comparative degree are. In all Russian grammar texbooks of the English and Russian languages that I referred to is mentioned that "we use a comparative degree when we compare two people, animals or things" while "we use the superlative degree when we compare three people, animals or things or more ". Does it mean that we can't use a comparative degree when we compare three people, animals or things under any circumstances? In New Round-Up #3 there's a sentence that goes like this: Jill's older than Pedro and Nora. It contradicts the rule, doesn'it?

I thought of precise, but not entirely sure even after checking a dictionary. Would you think it is the best choice? Answer Precise is usable in the sense you suggest, but it may be used more often to refer to ways of speaking rather than to accuracy of vocabulary. For example, I think that the following sentence from the Agent(The_Matrix) wikipedia article refers more to how Agent Gray talks and how he limits what he says, moreso than to vocabulary: Like all Agents he is normally dispassionate and aloof, with a precise manner of speaking, but ... As alternatives to precise for speaking of "someone who uses the right vocabulary consistently", consider fluent , "Able to speak a language accurately, rapidly, and confidently". To some extent, fluent emphasizes ease of speech more than accuracy, but a speaker or writer who often uses incorrect vocabulary will not be thought fluent. Some fluent synonyms include articulate, eloquent, facile, flowing, fluid, glib, l

Given the following sentence: You should always use prefixes with your table names Is the word table properly labeled as a noun or an adjective, as it is functioning as an adjective but the base word is a noun? Context: I am prefixing the words in some phrases with abbreviations. Some of the words are giving me trouble in classification. (The message is supposed to be an implicit proof of why adding prefixes to table names in a database is terrible. But I'd like to get it right.) Here's the full set of sentences for your amusement. However, please restrict your comments to the stated question, for the most part. com-Don't ver-Listen prep-To adj-Those adj-Other nou-People. pro-You aux-Should adv-Always ver-Use nou-Prefixes prep-With pro-Your adj-Table nou-Names. pro-I aux-Have adv-Even ver-Started ver-Using pro-Them prep-In adj-Normal nou-Writing. com-See adv-How adj-Effective pr-It ver-Is? nou-People aux-Can ver-Understand pro-Your nou-Writing adv-Better! This question is

I've heard this phrase, and don't know what a "mickle" or a "muckle" is. Hence I have no idea at all what the phrase itself is supposed to mean. Answer In this phrase, a mickle is a small amount of something (the Scots usage is intended in this proverb) and a muckle is a large amount, so the saying means that you can accumulate a great deal by many small savings. Some confusion may be caused by the fact that a mickle can also mean a large amount (isn't there a question about words than mean the opposite of themselves somewhere?).

For example, Styracaceae, Suidae, Sulidae, Sylviidae, Symplocaceae, etc. I don’t know how to pronounce them correctly.

I became a little unsure regarding to grammar while writing a sentence that, "... will either pass through the top-right or bottom-left corner, during which ...", in which case "which" has an implied antecedent of "passing through". I believe this sentence is clear enough, but wonder whether such usage of "which" may be disapproved in formal or academic writing. more examples: "He resigned that post, after which he engaged in ranching." "He died of cancer, which is what I predicted" Answer In the first case, use two sentences; figuring out the geometry has used up this one. .. will pass through either the top-right or the bottom-left corner. During this transition, ... (also, move either closer to the disjunction, and repeat the article to clarify it) "Such usage of which " is not "frowned on"; but it does require a lot of interpretation by the reader. What passes for good writing mostly is just not loadi

I've noticed that some people in my office spell out "data import tool" as D . I . T ., whereas others will say " dit " (like "ditty"). Is trying to pronounce an acronym as a word, as opposed to spelling it out, ever correct? Answer All I could find on pronouncing acronyms and initialisms is this list . The list distinguishes between acronyms and initialisms. Basically, acronyms are abbreviations that are pronounced as a single word and initialisms are an abbreviations, that are pronounced as a series of letters From this wiki article .

The term in context: Mr Obama and his daughter Sasha, 14, walk across a tarmac in New York on Friday. Shouldn't it be walk across tarmac or walk across the tarmac or walk across a road/footpath . I would think that tarmac is not a word to be preceded with 'a'.

What is the difference between "anyone" and "everyone" in the following context? For example, Anyone is welcome to do such and such. and Everyone is welcome to do such and such. mean exactly the same thing to me. But since I am not a native speaker, I guess there might be some subtle differences. Can anyone explain? Answer How to use anyone and everyone as they are typically used in English Everyone means all of the group. Anyone means all or any part of the group. Original example “ Everyone is welcome to do such and such” means all are welcome. “ Anyone is welcome to do such and such” means all or any part is welcome. In this situation, it makes no difference which word you use. Either word gives every person a welcome. Second example In the example below, it makes an important difference which word you use. Does everyone (all of the group) want ice cream? If the answer is yes , then all of the people want ice cream. If the answer is no , then some,

In BDSM relationships, a dominant male is often referred by his submissive counterpart as a "master", "sir" or by some other honorific. Some in the BDSM lifestyle insist that words referring to the dominant person in a relationship should always be capitalized, whereas those referring to the submissive partner should be written in lower case. While such a generalization does not adhere to the rules of the English language, I can't help but think that there are situations where capitalization is appropriate. In particular, I am wondering whether capitalization of "master" is appropriate in the following examples, where the word refers to a specific person: "Welcome home, Master ." "No, Master , I haven't finished my chores yet." "My Master will be with you shortly." I believe that the capitalization in the first two examples is correct, but not in the third. However, I am not certain about which rules apply and I'd

Newspaper/news article headlines usually have different syntax rules, for example No copula. North Korea trip 'successful' Past events written in present. Qantas cancels flight out of frozen Heathrow Predictions written with infinitive. Britain's 'crossbow cannibal' to die in jail Very often not in complete sentence. No indefinite/definite articles. Ivory Coast Faction Squeezes UN Force Using a comma instead of "and". Romania, Bulgaria face delay in joining Schengen. Why these rules and are there any other rules? Answer This is ellipsis, but more importantly, English headlines follow special conventions that are, by and large, consistent across publications. Headlines have evolved to maximize information output and minimize space, because this has been optimal for newspapers (until the Internet age, at least — but now the conventions are ingrained into the world of journalism, needed or not). This headline style guide covers the conventions in great deta

There is a popular idiom in Russian for describing a really crowded place: "(there's) no room for an apple to fall" ("яблоку негде упасть"). I struggle to think of anything similar in English, and the dictionaries I consulted were of no help, simply translating it as "crowded" or not even including it at all. The context would be something and anything along the lines of The place was so crowded that [X]. The room was full to the extent that [Y]. The street/square was [Z]. At the top of the hat charts, there is [no room for an apple to fall]. Which is to say, I am not married to any sentence structure in particular — I'll gladly rewrite from scratch to use a vivid and idiomatic adjective or noun, word or phrase, metaphor or saying, rather than try and shoehorn it into a sentence it does not feel itself welcome in.

I am uncomfortable with the use of inputs as the plural noun of the previously non-countable input . Is this a recent computer-related development (as used in many posts on this site) which has spilled into wider use, or is there a subtle demarcation of use happening? I am thinking especially about situations where input equates with a contribution or feedback. For example, I've seen sentences like: 'The organisation responded to the customers' inputs', and it feels completely wrong. For me this type should always be input whether plural or not. As an aside I am very comfortable with inputs as the plural of the sockets into which plugs can be put, but again this is a very different meaning. What is the state of play?

Recently, I've found myself talking about the use of pinching to zoom out on mobile devices, and I've been struggling with an opposite for the word 'pinch'. In lieu of a better word, I've been saying 'unpinch'. I'm wondering if there's a more appropriate word to use to describe the motion of spreading the fingers from a pinch position.

Is there a word that describes a person who spreads others' secrets without their permission? Answer "gossiper" fits perfectly. (not specific for secrets, though) a person given to gossiping and divulging personal information about others - TFD "yenta" is a slang word for a person, especially a woman, who is considered to be meddlesome or gossipy. a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others. e.g. "the couple's loud quarrel had the building's yentas yapping for a week." MW related words: blab, gossip, gossipmonger, newsmonger, rumormonger, scandalmonger, tabby, talebearer, taleteller, tattle, tattler, tattletale, telltale, whisperer.

I was interested in the following sentence which appeared in an article titled “ No Rest for the Weary ” in The New York Times (February 15, 2008). Would you have liked to have been president from 1862-1864? It sounds ungrammatical to my ear as the journalists (MICHELLE SALE and YASMIN CHIN EISENHAUER) did use "to have been" rather than "to be", but I am not able to find what rules govern this problem. So, I would write: Would you have liked to be president from 1862-1864? Am I right? If so, why?

Below is a sentence I found in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Could you please explain why the adjective "incredulous" is used as if it's an adverb? 'You sold the car?' she asked, incredulous. Should it be amended to include "incredulously" and exclude the comma: 'You sold the car?' she asked incredulously. P.S. I appreciate the possibility that this is a common structure, as opposed to being unique to "incredulous", yet I'm just not familiar with such a structure. Answer I found my answer. This sentence is grammatically correct: 'You sold the car?' she asked, incredulous. So, too is the other sentence: 'You sold the car?' she asked incredulously. Thus the first usage is not "aberrant" despite what the title suggests. In fact, this question is based on a false premise.

If I worked on something yesterday but it was not finished, which tense should I use? I didn't finish it yet or I haven't finished it yet Answer If you worked on it yesterday, stopped yesterday before finishing then, and don't want to say anything else about whether you will or can continue or not, but more likely that you are done for good (like a one-time test), then: I didn't finish it. If you worked on it yesterday, stopped yesterday before finishing, and want to imply that you are still planning on working on it, then: I haven't finished it. or with a bit more emphasis on the expectation of continuing I haven't finished it yet. The sentence *I didn't finish it yet. sounds off, because "didn't" isn't particularly continuous, but "yet' implies an expectation or possibility, and so also a continuing act.

Yes, I admit, as an AmE speaker, that all non-North American accents sound the same: BrE, Irish, Scottish, Australian and South African. Or rather, I can tell they are different if placed side by side as in the excellent 21 accents but I can't name them off in isolation, unless I pick out one very specific feature (e.g. he said 'bairn' for 'baby', must be Scottish, she said 'bruvvah' for 'brother', must be London). Is there some way to say objectively, comparing them all to each other, that, say, dialects A and B sound more similar than A and C or B and C? And really, with specific dialects...To Australians, for example, does AmE and, say, BrE actually sound alike? I see a distance matrix: BrE AmE IrE ... BrE 0 7 2 ... AmE 0 4 ... IrE 0 ... ... ... (of course the off diagonal numbers are picked out of thin air). Is there some less subjective comparison of distances (like how many people of one k

I see an increasing demand for an unlike button on Facebook: I have always used and understood unlike in the sense of dissimilar. Is it ever used in the sense of do not like ? Answer "Unlike" in this case refers to the fact that you have "liked" this post, and now, due to a change of opinion, you decide to reverse that "like", by "un-liking" the post. "Dislike" is not used here because "dislike" does not have the same effect that "unlike" has. "Unlike" is used in this case only to remove a "like", but "dislike" has the effect of not only removing the "like" but to actually have feelings of antipathy towards the post. Putting it in SE style: You see a post you believe is good, so you give a +1(like). After a while, you change opinions, so you remove your vote(unlike). Then, you think, this post is really bad, so you give it a -1(dislike)

Sometimes when I speak with my fellows at work, I start my sentences with "so" or "um". I don't know if this a bad behavior in business speak or not? If so, how can I get rid of those filler words? Answer It's a bad speaking habit in general; however, most people do it, myself included. It takes a fair amount of practice and training to discipline one's speech. If you find yourself doing it to often, you may consider taking some lessons from a speaking coach. I suggest you watch the movie The King's Speech : even royalty have this problem.

A friend uses this ____ -whore construction all the time. I challenged her to find a better way to say it. I suggested addict , enthusiast , devotee , and several other words. She said none of these convey her meaning the way whore does. She says she'll watch anything. I told her she's not being paid to watch, and whore would imply that she is. Can anyone suggest a better alternative?

Where does the internet jargon "Troll" come from? The way I see it. If it's a fishing reference, then you can't accuse someone of "Being a troll" and if it's a mythology reference then someone isn't really "Trolling" they're just "Being a troll". It seems like it has roots in both, because it's like they're waiting under a bridge to pop out and get you it's like dropping a line in and waiting for someone to take the bait while moving around a lot. Answer You really have to go to the newsgroups to see the evolution of the word. Before 1991, the word almost exclusively meant actual trolls of the D&D / Tolkien / Scandinavian vein. Troll dolls became popular that year, and that kind of diluted the issue a bit. Then around early 1992, there came a user named Troll on the old alt.flame usergroup that was (for lack of a better word) a troll - more of a proto-troll, as he was on a usergroup dedicated to flaming, so he

Sanction is an unusual ambiguous word to me. In some cases it means to approve some action, while in other cases it means to prohibit or punish some action; and there being near opposite meanings, context is especially essential for correct interpretation. What is interesting to me is: historically, how did sanction come to capture two opposite meanings like this? The etymology seems to trace back to the single Latin word sanctio , meaning a decree . But did sanctio have strong opposing meanings or connotations like our modern word sanction ? Or how and when did the divergence occur over time?

See context below: Bloomberg is well known for his malapropisms and mispronunciations: he's introduced former Yankee manager Joe Torre as "Joe Torres" [and] waxed rhapsodic about the famous singing duo "Simon and Garfinkle." Answer To wax rhapsodic about something is a common idiom meaning to praise something excessively . As James indicated, the verb to wax is a verb meaning to grow , but the verb is very uncommon outside of a few contexts such as this idiom, and when speaking of the phases of the moon.

I know there are several parts of speech: Noun Verb Pronoun Adjective Adverb Preposition Conjunction Interjection There might be others as well. Sometimes a word, depending on how it is used, can fulfill more than one of these classes. For example, the word "run" can be a verb: I run fast. or it can be a noun: Let's go for a run! What word, taking into account all its definitions, can fulfill the most word classes? Answer Well is an interjection, adjective, adverb, noun, and verb. That's five. Business is going well . [adverb] All is well with us. [adjective] Well , who would have thought he could do it? [interjection] The well was drilled fifty meters deep. [noun] Tears well up in my eyes. [verb] There's also round , with five, if you count when it is used to mean around : Give me a round figure. [adjective] Shall we play another round of cards? [noun] He had a look round before he kept going. [adverb] They walked round the tree. [preposition] The floor

These seem to be interchangeable. Are these both grammatically correct? Is there any difference at all? When are "at" and "towards" interchangeable?

Is there any word that can be used to describe an incident or event that may have taken place but people are not sure if that event actually took place because there is a lack of comprehensive evidence. For example many people believe that the Roswell Incident is actually true, however others believe that such an incident did not take place. Another example is an event from an Eastern religion called Mahabharat that is considered to be true by many people, however others differ suggesting that there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that this event actually took place. Answer purported - said to be true or real but not definitely true or real If things are more certain, you can bump the status of a purported event up to putative : putative - generally believed to be something

Inspired by this question , we have 80's : "The Eighties" 90's : "The Nineties" 00's : "The Naughts" or "The Naughties" 10's : ??? Answer Although "the teens" are to be avoided per the CMS, I would still refer to that decade as the teens . if "the Nineteen-" or the Twenty-" **does not precede the word. The only precedent I have to go on is how the medical profession refers to, say, illnesses in the second decade of life, e.g. The incidence of Hodgkin's Lymphoma peaks in the teens, and again in the late forties/early fifties. If "the Nineteen-" or the Twenty-" preceeds it, I would also say, tens .

For a simple phrase like "macaroni and cheese" it's clear you want both macaroni and cheese, not one or the other. But as more and more words are added, I've noticed a tendency to begin to read "and" as "or", at least from a Boolean logic perspective; is there any support for that? I've referenced the specific context before with a different question ; the relevant part this time is ... for the purpose of encouraging immigration and increasing the trade in the products of Michigan, or ... Is there any way to read "the purpose" as two separate items: encouraging immigration increasing the trade ... Or must they always be together, like "macaroni and cheese"? (I'm not interested in what "encouraging immigration" or "increasing the trade ..." might actually mean.) That is, have you satisfied the desired purpose by only "increasing the trade ..." or must you also "encourage immigration&q

In some languages the word-by-word translation of " so called " usually has a neutral connotation. E.g. in the Czech language you may very often find a sentence like this ( word-by-word translated from a Czech newspaper, not a genuine English text): 1. The government approved exceptions for so called non-pedagogical workers. Here the "so called" means that what follows is a terminus technicus , a domain specific jargon. Only sometimes (in the Czech language) in a very specific context it has a negative connotation (and is usually marked with quotation marks in written form or by showing the quotation marks by two fingers of both hands or by changing the intonation in speech): 2. The government does not accept the result of the so called "referendum" in the East Ukraine. However, I read a recommendation in an English textbook not to use " so called " as it almost always has a negative connotation in English, like in my second example. The book wa

I have a simple question — in a greeting or salutation such as "Good Morning Jane", since I believe it is a contraction, is Jane the object (as in "Good Morning to Jane") or is it the subject (as in "Jane, a good morning to you")? What about a common salutation such as "Dear Jane"?

Is the word "mayor" capitalized when it follows the city name? As in, San Francisco Mayor John Doe or San Francisco mayor John Doe?

I have heard of this word as cited to contain the most i's of all English words. I had never heard of it before, but when I copied and pasted it into my email program, lo and behold, the picky spellchecker didn't bat an eyelid! Has anyone ever seriously used this word, or any other word of comparable length? How in the world did my spellchecker know about a word nobody will ever use? Answer Your spellchecker didn't bat an eyelid because it is simply comparing that word to a list of known properly-spelled words. Despite there being about a quarter-million words in the English language, plus about another 50,000 proper nouns which are commonly included in spelling dictionaries and about another 50,000 "common" technical terms, when properly sorted and indexed it is trivial for a computer to perform a check of each word against this list in real time. On the flip side of that coin, the spell-checker feature of whatever application you use would take a severe credibi

Consider the following: I'll probably stay at home. I'll probably stay home. Is the second sentence still grammatically correct? Is there any difference at all?

I'm looking for a word that describes the act of doing something without a real logical reason but just because they can. A example of what I'm talking about would be like this: The boy hacked the Pentagon just because he could. He didn't steal anything and he didn't want the attention; he just wanted to proclaim his own self-dignity. What would you call someone like that or the act of doing something like that? Answer Perhaps are you talking about someone who do things spontaneously . Extreme cases are simple-minded, autistic or genius. The root of this behaviour may be intuition, which is more common. Gratuitously of Graffito seems the best, or in this example : "you're male... and therefore more innately qualified."

It is common in American English to refer to a powerful person or organization as an 800 pound gorilla . The expression makes sense -- a gorilla of that size would certainly be intimidating -- but what's so special about the number 800? Searching " n lb gorilla" on Google for various values of n results in many more hits when n = 800 than when n is any other quantity. Also, the Google Ngram Viewer finds notable occurrences of the phrase "800 pound gorilla" in texts starting around the late 1970s; other sized gorillas don't seem to be mentioned at all. The Wikipedia entry for the idiom claims that the phrase is rooted in a riddle ("Where does an 800 lb gorilla sleep?"), but that's just passing the buck. A 700 lb or 900 lb gorilla would be equally entitled to sleep wherever he wants to. Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry for gorilla states that the average male gorilla weighs about 400 lb, occasionally reaching 500 lb in the wild. Only obe

The quiz covers all the material up to the week of the quiz Sept.30 - Oct.6. Does this mean that September 29 is the last date, or that the week Sept.30 - Oct.6 is included in this span?

I make a distinction between "hot" and "spicy" food ("hot" not referring to temperature). I consider "hot" food the kind that "burns" and "spicy" food that has lots of flavor, but that may or may not "burn", but has some "heat" to it and is flavorful. I've been told that there is no real difference between the two and that I'm crazy for thinking that Tabasco sauce makes something "hot", while something like curry, ginger, or cumin makes something "spicy". Please help me out a little here with a little clarification. Answer I (and this Wikipedia article ) recommend the use of the of the word piquance (or piquancy ) to describe the condition of something being spicy hot , such as chili peppers. The article explains: A pumpkin pie can be both hot (out of the oven) and spicy (due to the common inclusion of ingredients in its recipe such as cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, mace and clo

I can almost remember the first time I had ever heard/saw the word 'equivocate', probably in some junior-high vocabulary lesson. Like with many latinate neologisms, at first blush it sounds weak and meaningless, its constituent parts don't combine directly to the given definition. But my memory of the definition was that the teacher (or authority, or my memory of those) said it meant 'to lie, to present a falsehood'. The word sounds like a euphemism to me, an obscurantism, instead of baldly stating 'a lie'. But now many years later and many uses and hearings of it, I find that the dictionary rendering is essentially 'to be ambiguous with the intention of misleading'. And that is definitely not 'lying'; it's close, and it's related, but it is not the same. So now, I want to really know, which is it? Is it 'lying by willfully misleading with ambiguous language' or is it 'willfully misleading with ambiguous language, but can

Better way to say: "put to good use" Trying to figure out in terms of being accountable with resources. Specifically, in this sentence: every cent of funding could be put to good use I think it sounds passive, but am blocked.

Does the subject a combination of government initiatives take singular or plural agreement? A combination of government initiatives has resulted in positive changes? or A combination of government initiatives have resulted in positive changes? Which is correct?

I see and hear this over and over again, and I have not the slightest idea where it comes from.

I'm from Western Pennsylvania. Until I moved away, I never realized that when I omitted the to be from phrases like needs to be cleaned , my usage was different than what most English speakers are accustomed to. Is it wrong?

Is it correct to use commas around therefore in the following quote? An important prerequisite to meet the requirements of ... is, therefore, the ability to ... Or should I omit the first comma to make the sentence correct? An important prerequisite to meet the requirements of ... is therefore, the ability to ...

Which is better: "I am not having lunch tomorrow unless I am really hungry." "I am not having lunch tomorrow unless I will be really hungry." Something else Answer I am not having lunch tomorrow, unless I'm really hungry. Is the correct answer. Present tense in the second sentence, because it's obvious you are not talking about the present, because you already know whether you are hungry now or not. Also, try swapping them and you'll see it right away: Unless I'm really hungry, I am not having lunch tomorrow. With the similar: If I'm not really hungry, I am not having lunch tomorrow. You would never say either of those: Unless I will be really hungry, I am not having a lunch tomorrow. If I won't be really hungry, I am not having lunch tomorrow. Another examples to prove that present tense really expresses future condition: If I don't get the money, I'll be really angry. If you fail the school exam, I won't give you your allowan

When is it okay to end a sentence in a preposition? I see it a lot, even though my elementary teacher told me it is wrong. This is probably a new development, a sign that our language is in decay. Soon none of us will be able to understand each other. But this sloppiness is a disaster, up with which I will not put. What are your own experiences with this terrible phenomenon? How may we roll it back? Should moderators strike out at such language abuse? What do you do to correct your friends, family, and colleagues? Do you leave them notes, too? Voice mails? Should all existing literature be corrected and republished as well, the old editions burned?

The phrase "it was all downhill from there" seems to have two, contradictory meanings. The first indicates that things have since gotten a lot worse. For example (from http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2213152-jacksonville-jaguars-awards-at-quarter-mark-of-the-2014-nfl-season ): After a promising first half against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 1 in which they jumped out to a 17-0 lead, it has been all downhill from there. They lost that game 34-17 and lost their next three games by a combined score of 118-41. While the second means the opposite thing--that the hard part is over and it's all smooth sailing now. For example (from http://www.wesh.com/weather/hurricanes/sept-10-marks-peak-of-atlantic-hurricane-season/27985138 ): September 10. That's the official peak of hurricane season for the Atlantic Basin. It's all downhill from here to the end of the season, November 30. I pretty much exclusively use the phrase for the latter meaning, since to me that's m

In a bulleted list of very technical sentences, where each bulleted item has one or two parenthetical examples or restatements which are complete sentences, should the first letter of each e.g. or i.e. sentence be capitalized or not? Example: Here is my technical sentence. (e.g., S hould the first word of this e.g. be capitalized like this?) Here is another technical sentence. (i.e., t his really isn't a i.e. different example to highlight whether the first word should or should not be capitalized after a parenthetical i.e.) Answer A parenthetical statement that is a complete sentence should begin with a capital. Your examples are wrong, however, because you should begin by capitalizing the first letter of the abbreviation i.e. or e.g. : Here is my technical sentence. ( E .g., should the word of this example be capitalized like this?) Here is another technical sentence. ( I .e., this really isn't an i.e., I just want to know if the first word should or should not be capitaliz

I am trying to figure out the meaning of prefix "Meta-" in English. Quoted from Wikipedia Meta- (from Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond", "with", "adjacent", "self"), is a prefix used in English (and other Greek-owing languages) to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter. In epistemology, the prefix meta is used to mean about (its own category) . For example, metadata are data about data (who has produced them, when, what format the data are in and so on). Also, metamemory in psychology means an individual's knowledge about whether or not they would remember something if they concentrated on recalling it. Furthermore, metaemotion in psychology means an individual's emotion about his/her own basic emotion, "or somebody else's basic emotion". Another, slightly different interpretation of this term is "about" but not "on" (exactl

In a day, we have different names for different times of it. For example, morning, afternoon, night, evening, noon . I need a hypernym for them all. What word should I use?

I was just looking at build on Wiktionary and I noticed that in Middle English the word was bilden . Where did the u come from? I can understand why words such as guide have a u ; it's to make the g "hard" (/ɡaɪd/) instead of "soft" like a "j": * gide (*/dʒaɪd/). In Modern English, changing the spelling to bild to follow the earlier spelling wouldn't change the pronunciation (/bɪld/), so how did build gain a u between Middle English and Modern English?

With relatives in the US south, I always thought that the definition of "kissing cousin" was a second cousin (or more distant) whom you could kiss and subsequently marry (FWIW I never did either!). However, a number of dictionaries have a very different definition: namely, a relation close enough to kiss on meeting (sort of like a hug, I gather). I never heard the term used this way. Is it a recent "invention"? Example: kissing cousin noun 1. A relative close enough to be kissed in salutation, hence anyone with whom a person is fairly intimate: The two species will often prove to be kissing cousins, for they'll crossbreed . You guys talk like kissing cousins TFD and Oxford Dictionaries confirm The Dictionary of American Slang's definition. The closest reference I found to the idea I mentioned was the discussing of Cousin Marriage in Wikepedia. Has any else heard the term used to refer to cousins who can be married? Answer The term usually means a blood

Is this the correct use of an apostrophe when showing a name and relationship? When was your father, Robert's, wedding? Thanks! Answer I'm not sure there is a way to correctly render it using an appositive and an apostrophe. Instead, if you want to keep representing the possessive with an apostrophe, I'd make "Robert" an essential clause and remove the comma altogether: When was your father Robert's wedding?

Is this sentence correct (especially the usage of whom)? In addition, it might jump to a random vertex in the graph, whom the current vertex is not necessarily connected to, with a certain probability.

Other questions on this site have established that kindly can be used as a sort of please . This usage was in my mind when someone said "Thank you kindly" to me, but "thank you please" doesn't make sense. However, characterizing one's own thanks as kind also sounds unlikely. The actual usage appears to be the sixth definition by Dictionary.com : kindly 6. cordially or heartily: We thank you kindly. However, I still have questions. Is this usage of kindly only used with thank you ? How did this usage occur? Answer Where I live (SE USA), kindly still is very much in use, but mainly as a way to exaggerate politeness, sometimes tongue in cheek. The word does not literally mean the same thing in thank you kindly as it does in would you kindly? , but in both cases it carries the connotation of being so polite that it sounds a bit silly, which makes it polite again. I realize that makes no sense whatsoever but I suppose it's a Southern thing and ask that

I know the basics of a semicolon—at least I think I do. Aside from delimiting verbose lists, it separates independent clauses of a sentence. So, if you have two independent clauses in a sentence, you can either separate them with a semicolon, or a comma along with a conjunction—like "but". However, I've noticed a few authors actually using a semicolon with a conjunction, like: ; but Can anyone shed some light on when this is preferable to just a comma? Is this simply a matter of personal preference? Answer To me, it seems to be purely personal preference. The semicolon between clauses suggests a connection between the sentences that is stronger than if there were a period between the two. As (to me) it is generally acceptable to start sentences with the short conjunctions and and but , I believe the general rule can extend to independent clauses joined by a semicolon. Possibly: He is the most disagreeable person I've ever had the misfortune to meet, and I dislike hi

What is the third conditional for "if I could"? For example, we say: If I had studied hard, I would have passed the exam. How about this: If I could study, I would have passed the exam.[Is there a past perfect for could?] Answer Although could is the past tense of can , past tense in modals often doesn't mean past time. In the if I could , the past tense could has a counterfactual meaning rather than a past time meaning. Of course, the verb following the modal can't be past tense, so to give it a past time meaning, use the perfect aspect (i.e., could + have + past participle). So your example about studying could be changed to If I could have studied, I would have passed. Another option, as Irene has pointed out, is to avoid could and use be able, leading to If I had been able to study, I would have passed. The idea of zero, first, second, and third conditional has been much criticszed. See, for example, here .

In Dickens' Pickwick Papers , there's a character "Sam Weller". Weller's dialogue is written somewhat phonetically, I presume, but I'm struggling to understand what accent Dickens is trying to portray. The main peculiarities of Weller's speech are using "v" where there should be a "w" and a "w" when there should be a "v". For example, he says "wery" instead of "very" and "avay" instead of "away". Weller is supposed to be from London, but this doesn't seem like any kind of London accent I've heard. Is this a particular archaic accent? More importantly, what is Dickens telling us about Sam Weller by having him speak like this? Answer It's supposed to represent 19th century Cockney, a working-class London dialect. I don't know if Cockneys actually switched v's & w's like this; it seems more likely to me they pronounced both letters in the same way, per

I am doing documentation for a web application issue and I'm not sure how best to word what I'm trying to say: "This appears to work no longer in any web browser." "This appears no longer to work in any web browser." "This appears not to work any longer in any web browser." Which is most correct, or are they all equally correct? Answer This is a situation where Neg-Raising is useful. You want the negative in the main clause: This does not appear to work any longer in any web browser. Double any 's in the sentence is fixable by Neg-Raising the whole phrase no longer This no longer appears to work in any web browser.

I'm developing a tool that looks at a person's resume and skill set. One of the features is to estimate how much experience a person has based on the length of time on a project and associated skills/tools used in that time (we've had extensive talks about the limitations of this, but that's not really relevant to this question). At the end of the day, I'd like to be able to say "Bob has 4 years experience with C#," but the correct way to show that is unclear to me: Bob has 4 years experience with C# Bob has 4 year's experience with C# Bob has 4 years' experience with C# I'm writing documentation and the phrase "number of years experience" has shown up a few times, but I think that's the same situation as above (Word grammar checker does not like this phrase).

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word virgin came from 2 languages: Anglo-French and Old French virgine "virgin; Virgin Mary " From Latin virginem (nominative virgo) "maiden, unwedded girl or woman " It seems clear to me that it started to mean a female/woman instead of a male. The origin of its noun form virginity seems to be from the same origin: c. 1300, from Anglo-French and Old French virginite "(state of) virginity; innocence" (10c. in Old French), from Latin virginitatem (nominative virginitas) "maidenhood, virginity," from virgo (see virgin). According to Oxford Online Dictionary, virginity seems to be a gender-neutral word: The state of never having had sexual intercourse: I lost my virginity When and how did the words virgin and virginity start to function as a gender-neutral word? What (word or phrase) was used for males before the words became gender-neutral? Answer Historical trends in 'losing [one's] vi