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In response to the death of Elmore Leonard the New York Times has posted a list of writing tips he composed back in 2001. Among them is the following: To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. This is not the first time I have read of professional writers discouraging the use of adverbs. While technically (adverb!) appropriate English, why are they treated with such disdain, and what makes a good adverb substitute? Answer A Grammar Girl post, How to Eliminate Adverbs , notes: Adverbs find themselves much maligned because they're often redundant or awkwardly placed. In the next sentence, it notes that writer Stephen King likens adverbs "to dandelions. When one unwanted weed sprouts up, more follow." Rather than substitute, the Grammar Girl article recommends pruning adverbs, especially those that are repetitive ("She smiled happily"), used carelessly as intensifiers (such as "extremely" or "definitely"), or used alongsi

Suppose I have some problem when someone takes an action 'X' on me which I find highly offensive and which makes me feel bad but it may/may not effect other individuals if used on them. A friend of mine has a bad habit of claiming that 'X' is not something to get mad at and he says that action 'X' does not have any effect on him and also he considers individuals who find 'X' offensive to be stupid. The idea which I want to convey to him is: Different people like/dislike different things. But I need a colloquial saying (metaphorical maybe) or natural expression to use while having a conversation with him. Do any popular saying exist that would get this idea across? If you have any self-made expression, I would deeply appreciate it if you could share it. Answer Consider, to each their own one has a right to one's personal preferences AHD

I want to describe a situation in which someone gets interested in something/someone to such extent that he forgets other activities and normal life, and just cares and thinks about the beloved activity/person. This is the sentence in which I want to use this word: I devoted myself to this/her/him so (the word) that ... . One word that comes to my mind is to use the adjective form of ascetic . But I'm not sure it's the best or even a correct choice.

Disgusting means Causing disgust; repulsive; distasteful and is a deverbal adjective in that it behaves purely as an adjective, not a present participle. If we take an adjective such as "disgusting" and define it as "causing disgust" or some other definition with the progressive aspect, does that mean a sentence with that adjective describing something entails that another being exists? For example, The very disgusting bug was alone in the room. The man who was the only person there was really annoying.

A deerstalker is a soft cap, most commonly associated with Sherlock Holmes. Neither Oxford nor Etymonline lists the word's origin. Does anyone know when and how this word originated?

I need help on finding words relating to the senses/perception. I mean this in a neuronic/biological or philosophy-of-mind kind of way. A word for... pertaining to the senses (Is it sensory ?) pertaining to vision ( ocular ?) pertaining to smell ( olfactoric ?) pertaining to taste pertaining to sound pertaining to touch unable to smell unable to taste unable to feel/touch unable to perceive ( unconscious ?) (unable to see: blind ) (unable to hear: deaf )

You love me no more. You no longer love me. You don't love me anymore. How are these three sentences different from one another? I use not anymore more often than the others. But once I used I use your service no more and an English guy standing by burst into laughter.

— Where are you going? — I'm going to Paris. vs. — Where are you going to? — I'm going to Paris. I'm pretty sure the first one is correct, but what about the second? Answer The “to” in “Where are you going to?” sounds superfluous to me just because “Where are you going?” is perfectly fine and I cannot think of any reason to add “to” to it. The reason why “Where are you going to?” sounds strange is not because the sentence ends with a preposition. For example, there is nothing wrong with the sentence “Who are you talking to?”

From Grammar Workshop: "Lydia's father is a master chef he oversees the kitchen at a five-star restaurant." Can someone explain whether to use a semicolon or a colon?

"There are infinite ways to..." "There are an infinite number of ways to..." One of my colleagues wrote the first sentence, but it didn't sound quite right to me. The second version seems more grammatical to me. Are both of these grammatically correct or is one version preferable to the other? Answer The OED’s second definition of infinite is, when it is used with a plural noun: unlimited or indefinitely great in number; innumerable, very many, “no end of” There this supporting citation with ways from 1775: Thus there are . . . infinite ways of being vicious, though but one of being virtuous. However, the entry describes this use as being now archaic or rare. It is probably best avoided for that reason and because, as the other answers show, its use is controversial. In the example, an infinite number of ways is preceded by There are rather than There is because an infinite number of premodifies the plural ways . This contrasts with the infinite number of

Some examples would include: Shakespearean Christian Mesmerized Pavlovian Newtonian Boolean Darwinian Answer Those are eponymous adjectives . Wikipedia says: An eponymous adjective is an adjective which has been derived from the name of a person, real or fictional. Persons from whose name the adjectives have been derived are called eponyms . It follows with a more-or-less comprehensive list that might be worth looking at.

Is it now considered acceptable to follow a proper noun with a pronoun? E.g. The President he issued a new executive order.

"of" seems to be pronounced with the f sound asˈäf in phrases like "of course". But 'of' is pronounced as \əv in a lot of other cases. Yet, Merriam Websters gives the one with 'v' sound as the only pronunciation. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/of Why is that? Why does the dictionary give the one with 'v' sound as the only pronunciation? In what cases 'of' is pronounced with f versus pronounced with v sound?

What's the origin of the phrase "to throw someone under the bus" or "so-and-so threw me under the bus?" (in the sense of betrayal)? It seems like a very specific phrase not to come from some specific incident. Answer Wikipedia provides the origin: Its first use was by General Manager Joseph M. Kelly, who said he was considering ending a network affiliation. "I'm thinking about putting The Source under the bus," Kelly said in early 1988. The phrase was picked up by station employees, and often used to describe political intrigue at the station, Also used in this: In Septuagenarian Stew (The Life of a Bum), published in 1990, the Charles Bukowski character Harry pushed his friend Monk in front of a bus, and then stole Monk's wallet while Monk lay unconscious and probably dying in the street. After taking the wallet, Harry went directly to a bar and, using Monk's money, bought himself two double whiskeys. Later, Harry went to the Groton Steak

I've always had difficulty pronouncing the letter /r/. Whenever i try to say /r/ it comes out as a gha, a sound similar to the arabic letter غ. Any idea how i can fix this?

I get the sense that the word "Admining", like the word "Admin" from which it derives, is used to refer to computer administration, while "Administrating", like "Administrator", is used more when it is finance or buisness being admin'd. I would like to know what other people think, though, if that is indeed so, or if my perception is wrong. Also, as a side note, what about "admined" vs "admin'd". Answer The usual English verb for supervision is administer. The variant forms administrate and admin are both used primarily in technical jargon, mostly in reference to computer system administration. This Ngram shows that they see very little use in general English compared to administer. It's not at all unusual to use -’d instead of -ed for forming the past tense of an abbreviation , especially for acronyms. Admined is awkward because there's (secondary) stress on the second syllable: admin'd or adminne

If someone does something 'by the skin of their teeth', it means they just barely managed to do it. What is this idiom supposed to be referring to exactly, and how did it originate? Answer Because (of course) your teeth don't have skin, the expression by the skin of your teeth suggests 'by the smallest possible margin'. This reference claims an origin in The Geneva Bible 1560.

One begins with a vowel and should therefore have an and not a in front of it. Why is it, then, that ‘such a one’ is what is actually said? It appears to have been the case when the King James Bible was translated in 1611: 1 Corinthians 5:5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (Bible Gateway) Moreover, the google yield of "such an one" loeb has several instances from the 20th c. Other questions like this one or this one do not explain why an is obsolete. Was the pronunciation different before? What changed? One hypothesis would be that earlier orthography was considered to stand above phonology. Is that the case?

I'm not sure if rubbernecking is the term I should be using, but what do you call the act of commenting on an Internet discussion, just for the sake of letting other people know that you want to butt in, but not actually add anything to the discussion. An example of this would be watching a heated argument on Facebook and you adding a comment, "Pass the popcorn", which is pretty annoying and does not actually add anything to the discussion.

Some argue that because “thanks in advance” is written before any help has been offered, it adds an expectation of help and thus can be considered presumptuous. Is this reasonable? Would it be appropriate to use this phrase in business correspondence? If not, is it possible to demonstrate gratitude without coming across as presumptuous? Thanks in advance. Answer To remove any chance of seeming presumptuous, you might say: Thanks in advance for any help you are able to provide. This acknowledges that their ability to help may be limited (or nonexistent), but it is courteous nonetheless. It is perfectly suitable for business contexts. (Note that according to the specific situation, you could swap out help with words like assistance , information , thoughts , etc.)

I used the phrase, "She put two and two together..." the other day and, shortly after saying, wondered about its origin. My understanding is that it means to "connect the dots" or to figure the answer to a question, but I'm uncertain why "put two and two together" became a synonym. My guess is that it originally had a longer form, like, "She put two and two together to get four ," but that the "to get four" part has fallen out of usage. Answer A query by "put two and two together" on the COHA (1810s-2000s) shows that the phrase appeared in sentences without a longer form since 1848 at least (1848 is the year of the first result). There are occurrences of a longer form "put two and two together and make four". It's not clear whether the shorter form derived from the longer form, but I'd say that your hypothesis makes sense.

I completely don't understand what this star's line means, even though the words are simple. sup my homeslice? harvard jv field hockey is da bomb... What's homeslice ? What does da mean? Answer Sup : Actually 'sup? abbreviation of "What is up?"; "What is happening?" homeslice : friend; variant of "homes", "homey", "homebrother", originally implying someone from your neighborhood "home", but now simply slang for "buddy." da bomb : 'da' = 'the' so 'the bomb'; something really good. jv : Junior Varsity, the team below Varsity, usually composed of anyone who wants to play rather than players selected by the coach for performance. So my translation would be: What is happening, friend? Harvard Junior Varsity field hockey is really good.

What it says on the tin, a foreign friend of mine has asked and I can't tell him; apart from it sounding horrible. For example: "Why is it raining today?" Instead of: "Why it is raining today?" Answer Please visit https://ell.stackexchange.com/ To answer your question http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/clause-phrase-and-sentence/verb-patterns/verbs-questions-and-negatives Here are the question forms and negative forms for the verb be in the present simple and past simple: I am Am I? I am not He is Is he? He is not She is Is she She is not It is Is it It is not You are Are you You are not They are Are they They are not http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-reference/question-forms-subjectobject-questions Yes/No questions Is he a teacher? Yes he is. Can you swim? No, I can’t. Have they got a car? Yes they have. To form yes/no questions where there is an auxili

I have been seeing the word c'tee frequently. Here are some examples: Sports minister sets up c’tee to find solution to football crisis http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/08/sports-minister-sets-up-ctee-to-find-solution-to-football-crisis/ Trajtenberg C’tee Presenting Final Recommendations Today http://www.israelidiamond.co.il/english/news.aspx?boneid=918&objid=9925 ADIA - National C'tee Meetings http://www.adia.org.au/meetings/national Safety & Equipment Audits - YNSW Special Regs C'tee Reports http://www.rpayc.com.au/sailing/safety-equipment-audits/page-7 Ramelton Fever Hospital C'tee meeting 1905 http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/history-heritage/heritage-towns/the-heritage-towns-of-don/ramelton/ramelton-fever-hospital-c-1/ From the context the word seems to mean either a [political] investigation or a [government] minister. I cannot find any English-English or English-Hebrew dictionary definitions, though. Using Google Translate I cannot find the word

Which of these forms is better: list of tasks or tasks' list ? Another question is whether I should use an apostrophe or not ( tasks's list vs tasks list ). Other phrases which are similar to this, but aren't quite what I'm looking for, are list of projects and task's action (one task this time). Maybe the answer is obvious, but English is not my native language so I need to understand it. Answer The usual phrase is "task list" (without plural or apostrophe). "List of tasks" is perfectly acceptable, and perhaps preferable in general writing; but in referring to a list (almost like a name for it) "task list" is overwhelmingly the common expression. "Tasks' list" would be very unusual: the possessive 's and its variants are usually used only for real possession, not for more general relationships; and tend not to be used for abstract nouns, though this is not a firm prohibition.

Is there a term for words that summon someone like "Man," "Dude," "Kid" in sentences such as "Hey, Dude," "Listen up, kid," etc? I am sure there is, but I can't really remember what it is. Answer I think you might be thinking of vocative . of a word or word group : marking the one addressed (as mother in “mother, come here”)

I have a problem with a phrase that can describe the following: a strong reason for wanting something to happen because you will get advantage from it. I need the phrase for a formal essay.

My dictionaries and references define, and I've always thought of, one of the functions of the word whatever as a "relative determiner." In a sentence like, "I will help you in whatever way is possible," inserting the relative pronoun "that" between "way" and "is" , or replacing "whatever" with "the" - a pure, non-relative determiner - (I reckon) renders it ungrammatical: *I will help you in whatever way that is possible. *I will help you in the way is possible. However, I do often encounter utterances like the first one above, such as: My hope and intent is to contribute in whatever way that I can. I wish to be of service to the local communities in whatever way that is possible. where "that" is used, and thus "whatever" can be replaced by "the" without making the sentences ungrammatical (if they are grammatical to begin with): My hope and intent is to contribute in the wa

Those words all mean ..... WE! Answer human: a human being, especially a person as distinguished from an animal or (in science fiction) an alien human being: a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance humankind: human beings considered collectively (used as a neutral alternative to “mankind”) The NOAD has also these notes. Traditionally, the word man has been used to refer not only to adult males but also to human beings in general, regardless of sex. There is a historical explanation for this: in Old English, the principal sense of man was "a human being," and the words wer and wif were used to refer specifically to "a male person" and "a female person," respectively. Subsequently, man replaced wer as the normal term for "a male person," but at the same time the older sense "a human being" remained in use. In

I have read somewhere that it is typical of poems such as Nibelungenlied to use a figure of speech which in fact merges two phrases into one by the mean of a common word. An example could be the following: And then I ate the apple was red as blood A proper example of this can be found in Nibelungenlied (Adventure 20, 1184, 1-2), where we have man sach Ortwin von Mezze | ce Rvedgeren sprach which means one saw Ortwin von Metz | to Rüdiger said So, is there a name for this figure of speech? Is it a typical figure of other archaic poems such as Beowulf or am I confusing?

Keep that blank clean. No religious flaming. What I mean is this: inhabitants of America are Americans , inhabitants of Ohio are Ohioans , and inhabitants of Cincinnati are Cincinnatians . But what demonym would you use or have you seen used to refer to a resident of Vatican City? This site doesn't have one in its list, and the example for Sioux City, Iowa, found on this Wikipedia page would seem to suggest that maybe it's Vatican Citian , which just sounds awful. Maybe it's one of those places that has never had a demonym. After all, "demon" does appear in the word… Answer According to the CIA World Factbook , there is no official demonym for the Vatican City. I think I have seen Citizen of the Holy See used in print, although I can't remember where.

I use it all the time since I work with databases , but every time I write it somewhere with spell check I get the squiggly line below it. I've seen other people spell it with an "s" instead of a "z" but neither have an entry in the Merriam Webster dictionary. Is this just technical jargon or am I misspelling it? Answer The -s vs. -z is a British vs. American spelling convention. Anything with the suffix -ize is spelled -ise by people following British conventions. As for whether or not it's a word, I believe its meaning is transparent from its productive morphology: normal normal + ize = to make normal de + normalize = to undo the normalization So, using "de-" usually has a meaning that some previous normalization process is being undone. But I think it might still be acceptable if there was no explicit normalization process, but what you've done is take an intrinsically normal object and removed its normal property.

Why is it such a common mistake (particularly among school-children) to connect certain pairs of separate words? The most obvious example probably being: e.g. "a lot"->"alot" Is it because- in this particular case at least- there is already a valid word "allot" that exists? Maybe also, it helps that "a" is a valid prefix to a word (e.g. "a-plenty"). Answer Possibly people have a natural tendency to spell "alot" in a single word because the brain processes it as a single word. At any rate, with its use for quantification, it clearly has some "special" properties. Notice the difference in verb agreement between: A lot of the problems are due to bad planning. A lot from the auctions is missing. This taken with the fact that "a lot" can be used adverbially ("he got a lot further") probably make it "feel" like a single item in terms of how the brain processes it. The perceived "o

What does "Thundering typhoons" mean? Actually it was in the 2011 movie The Adventures of Tintin. Answer Thundering typhoons! is an alliterative phrase (sometimes in the extended form Ten thousand thundering typhoons! ) used by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner to translate Hergé's Tonnerre de Brest! (a loud daily canon shot to announce the closure of the arsenal at Brest). It is simply a exclamation not designed to mean anything. Captain Haddock also says Blistering barnacles (or Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles! ) as a translation of Mille millions de mille milliards de mille sabords! (literally, thousands of millions of thousands of billions of thousands of portholes).

I have noticed a pattern involving vulgarities where the previous generation's evil words become accepted as merely off-color or rude in the following generation. Is this merely each generation's small rebellion against their parents? Does society get bored with certain blacklisted words and move onto different choices? It seems that some offensive or vulgar words maintain their status far longer than others while some don't last too long. Am I simply suffering from an odd form of selection bias? Other interesting observations are the choices of insults that particular communities choose to use. Online video gaming has become quite fond of "rape" which is probably a completely inappropriate word to trivialize as meaning pwned. That community seems particularly attracted to violent or overtly offensive terms. Is there a historic precedence for this? Are such communities related to the aforementioned shift in what is considered vulgar? Answer You might be looking f

So we call a French male "Frenchman", an English male "Englishman", and a Dutch male "Dutchman". what do we call Swiss males? "Swissman" comes to mind, but it sounds like a cheesy version of Superman, like "Cheddarman" or "Mozzarellaman". Answer There are in fact very few cases where the customary demonym is root + -man — those you have named plus Irishman , Norseman , Welshman , Scotsman , and (obsolete, now considered offensive) Chinaman , and maybe a few others in Britain like Yorkshireman or Cornishman . In the absence of a more established form, the demonym is usually the same as the adjectival form. Just as we would speak of an Indonesian, an Omani, or a New Zealander, we would speak of a Swiss . It sounds abrupt, even to this native speaker, not only because it is monosyllabic (e.g. calling someone a Japanese also seems off), but because in today's politically correct age, referring to someone solely by their n

Is it considered proper English to say something like this? I called her via a telephone. Or should the indefinite article be omitted entirely? I called her via telephone. If the indefinite article is to be omitted, are there any cases in which it should not be? Or, does it even matter? Answer If you look at the Merriam-Webster dictionary, two of the example usages for via are as follows: He did some research via computer. We went home via a shortcut. So the second example shows you can certainly use a after via . ("We went home via shortcut" sounds wrong to me.) However, I would say via telephone. This usage is closer to via computer, because telephone here refers not to a specific telephone, but to the general medium of telephony. Similarly, you would go somewhere via train or via superhighway , if you are talking about trains or superhighways in the abstract; but via the Orient express or via the Mass Pike, if you are talking about a specific train or superhighwa

Is the word "dude" becoming gender neutral? I don't think so, however, has modern usage changed? Are there some recent examples of "dude" being used to refer to a woman or group of women? Answer It is common in my experience (woman in US, 26, liberal hippie type) for groups of women to be called "dudes" or "guys" by both men and other women, but not for individual women to be called a "dude" or a "guy." One exception seems to be in greetings using "dude," as in, "Hey dude!"

None of the 26 answers given here , or the 5 answers given here mentions any similarity between the pronunciation of E = mc² and A = πr², yet I still remain confusioned as to what distinguishes the reading of E = (mc)² and A = (πr)² with the reading of the first two. Answer To read A=(πr) 2 to a class, items in parentheses tend be categorized as the quantity with contents terminated by a pause in speech. Per the Oregon State math read-aloud accommodation Parentheses - read as “the quantity” 3(x + 2) is read as “three times the quantity ‘x’ plus two” (y – 5) ÷ 6 is read as “ the quantity ‘y’ minus five (pause) divided by six” Which is to be interpreted for the question as: A equals the quantity pi 'r' (pause) squared Edit to add: "Is it pi 'r' or is it pi times r?" Expressions containing variables (any letter may be used as a variable): “‘V’ equals four thirds pi ‘r’ cubed” I think it should be noted that vocalization of a math(s) expression is likely to b

And thanks, too, for contacting me, because you need to hear what I have to say. You might want to sit down for this. If you’re on anti-anxiety medication, all the better. What does the columnist mean by saying "You might want to sit down for this"?

Should I use "why is this not" or "why is not this?" Or are both correct? Answer The usual order is "Why is this not [ready yet]?" Inverting it to "Why is not this [rose in bloom]?" might be possible in poetry, but it sounds awkward at best in everyday usage. Note: awkward at best is a euphemism for incorrect . Edit: you didn't ask about it, but for completeness I thought I'd mention that "Why isn't this [all over the internet]?" is perfectly fine; indeed, it's probably the most common choice, despite the fact that expanding the contraction results in precisely the why is not this construction criticized above. (Contractions are like that.)

I received an email today with the following sentence: Please be reminded to bring your basketball gear in. He was subsequently made fun of by a co-worker: 'Please be reminded' - Will you be doing the reminding, or should I expect somebody else to be reminding me? I am wondering if: the original sentence is valid and unambiguous, or if the interpretation made by his co-worker is valid due to ambiguity in the semantic meaning of the original sentence. Answer The sentence is grammatical: a passive construction does not necessarily need an agent. That said, as others have commented, it’s probably not the most effective way of putting it.

"Do not you want to know who has taken it?'' cried his wife impatiently. -Pride and Prejudice (1813) According to one of the answers in Is "Don't you know? " the same as "Do not you know?"? , "Do not you want to know..." is "ungrammatical; you is not heavy enough to shift past not". 200 years does not seem to be that long. When did this happen? I do not like contractions, so I would like to use "Do not you.." but all the sources say I should use "Do you not..." instead. I am just curious how "Do not you..." became incorrect within 200 years.

Does it make sense to say the following? Yesterday I wore an umbrella and a coat.

Suppose there is a sentence in question form, like the one appearing below: Where do you belong to? Now, if a speaker refers to that question, he will frame another sentence and will place the question in the quotation marks in that sentence, like what is appearing below: They said, "Where do you belong to?" Now, if the speaker wants to convert this sentence too in question form, he will put the original question in another question, like what is appearing below: What did they mean by saying "Where do you belong to?" Now, if the speaker wants to rephrase this sentence, it would become as follows: By saying "Where do you belong to?" what did they mean? My question is how the 4th sentence is to be punctuated. It has two question marks in it. Does the sentence correctly take two question marks? If so, why will the 3rd sentence not take two question marks − one, just before the closing inverted commas and, the second, just after those commas? The 4th sentence

Which one is correct: Submit your work in time. Submit your work on time. Answer "In time" usually has an implicit "for (some event)", whereas "on time" means "before some deadline". The "event" could be a deadline, but in that case "on time" is much more common. Examples: "I got there in time for the parade" "I delivered the report in time for him to read it before the meeting" "I got to town in time (for)/(to catch) the last train" "I got there in time" - meaning "in time for some event which is assumed to be known". but "I got there on time" - meaning "before the deadline" - which may be known to the hearer, but does not need to be, because the phrase itself implies a deadline as opposed to some other event.

I know that those who code in Python could be called Pythonistas, Pythoneers and Pythonists and Ruby programmers could be called Rubyists. Anyways, my question is, are there nicknames for other language users? More specifically, is there one for a person that codes Java? Answer As a former employee of Sun Microsystems, I think I can explain why there is no single word for Java programmers. To preserve its trademark, Sun had a policy of discouraging any creative modification of the word "Java". For example, the use of the once-current word "Javatized" to mean "implemented in Java" was suppressed, with "Java-enhanced" as the recommended wording. Courts have taken the coinage of related words as evidence of trademark erosion , which would lead to "Java" being reclassified as a generic trademark.

RSVP literally means "Please respond", however it seems to have turned itself into a noun in common usage: "What's your RSVP for the party?" "I'm attending" Is it acceptable to refer to a person's attendance status as their RSVP ? Answer The conventional meaning of the abbreviation is (from New Oxford American Dictionary ): RSVP répondez s'il vous plaît , or please reply (used at the end of invitations to request a response) Modern usage of the term has pushed the boundaries of its use, and the Corpus of Contemporary American English includes examples of it being used as pretty much everything form a noun, a verb, an adjective, etc. It said to RSVP with the enclosed card Rosie O'Donnell's last-minute RSVP is throwing everyone into a tizzy There's an RSVP section When people RSVP with uninvited dates, I deal with that I think it's the third request for your RSVP in regard to your alma mater's fundraiser It appears as s

From comments to “Weekdays” used as an adverb" , I learn that The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary says "open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m." , shows the word weekdays is an adverb. It seems to me that in "We open weekdays at 7 a.m." , and "We open tomorrow at 7 a.m." both weekdays and tomorrow are the same "part of speech" - and again in "I'll go tomorrow " . I will happily describe words like happily and quickly as adverbs - for example... "I'll go quickly " , and by extension "I'll go quickly and quietly " . On the other hand... "I'll go tomorrow " can't be extended to "I'll go tomorrow and quietly " . Am I being thick, or is OALD spouting nonsense? Answer The theory of adverbs (and of Conjunction Reduction) given by McCawley in The Syntactic Phenomena of English explains why you can't get your example *"I'll go tomorrow and quietly.&

Looking through the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors (part of the Oxford Style Manual , I was suprised to read in its dictionary part the following entry on page 619a: apodictic clearly established, not -deictic The Oxford Dictionaries entry for apodictic says the etymology is: via Latin from Greek apodeiktikos, from apodeiknunai 'show off, demonstrate'. Is there any reason other than simple convention why the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors recommends writing "apodictic" despite the etymological origin of the word? Answer Well, style manuals don't need a reason beyond simple convention. Some people just like consistency, and to achieve that, you have to prescribe some standard and proscribe the alternatives, even if they're legitimate variants in general. And as Edwin Ashworth points out in a comment, apodictic seems to be the more commonly used spelling, which can be considered a reason to prefer it. There's nothing etymolog

My friend was reading the book "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green and she found what seems to be a grammar mistake. The following sentence is found in the author's note: Neither novels or their readers benefit from attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Isn't it grammatically correct to say "nor" instead of "or"?

I've heard people say "be king" (as in "I can't wait to be king") in movies and TV. Why don't they say "be a king"? Which is correct? Answer Since "a king" uses an indefinite article, it suggests that he may become any one of a number of kings. In most cases where a person may become king, there is only one king in the political structure he inhabits. For instance, if he is in the line of succession for the English throne, he probably cannot become king of France or Denmark without marrying into that royal family. The equivalent phrase to "I can't wait to be king" would use a definite article - it could be rephrased as "I can't wait to be the king", since there is only one kingship he is eligible to accede to.

As I listened to the English radio, the DJ said "keep on challenging yourself". But I have known that we can also say that "keep challenging yourself". What is the role of "on" in the former expression? Thank you in advance. Answer The two sentances have the same meaning. "On" in the first sentence is just a preposition.Essentially the first sentence is teling you to continue to be engged in challenging yourself, while the sencond sentence is telling you to continue to challenge yourself.

A recent commenter on a recent word-search question nominated a term as “an even better word for what is trying to be said.” This seems to me to attribute intention to something—a meaning—that is incapable of intention. I have also encountered this same fallacy, as it seems to me, with words such as able and ability followed by passive infinitive, in such a way as seemingly and absurdly to locate the ability in question in the patient rather than the agent. For some reason, passive constructions like “capacity to be [past participle],” and “capability of being [past participle],” which respectively locate the capacity and the capability in the patient, do not likewise bother me in the least: The 235 U nucleus has the unique capacity to be split by a neutron into 89 Kr, 144 Ba, and three neutrons that can in turn split further 235 U nuclei. But I would never say or write that the nucleus is able or has the ability to be split. To say that something “can be said” is unquestionably

I've often heard this kind of sentence where one substitutes the conjunction "like" for "as". Is it acceptable in written English? Is it considered wrong in spoken English? Answer As Bryan Garner puts it (in GMAU, 3e): "It is acceptable in casual English; it isn't yet in the category of unimpeachable English." In other words, don't write this way if you want to be considered educated. But, if you correct someone who speaks this way, you'll probably be considered a "grammar Nazi".

"He is happy, isn't he?" If you did not use the contraction isn't he , in the question above, would the correct sentence be: "He is happy, is he not?" "He is happy, is not he?" Sentence #1 seems to have to have same meaning as the above question but does not become the subject complement of he? Is #2 the grammatical equivalent albeit archaic or uncommon in modern English?

Are the two words synonyms? Is it grammatically correct to say "you have two choices, this or that?" Isn't that one choice? Should it not be "you have one choice, this or that" or "you have two options, this or that?". For two choices, don't you need a minimum of three options?

I found the following line in today’s (December 4) Time magazine article titled, Coburn Speaks Up: “On "Fox News Sunday," Sooner State Sen. tells Chris Wallace he would have trouble supporting Gingrich. Coburn: "I'm not inclined to be a supporter of Newt Gingrich's having served under him for four years and experienced personally his leadership . I found it lacking often times." To the eyes of a non-native English speaker, and as a bigoted septuagenarian, Coburn’s remark looks as if Newt Gingrich has served under Coburn and Coburn experienced personally how excellent Newt Gingrich’s leadership is. Is it wrong to say: "I'm not inclined to be a supporter of Newt Gingrich's. Having served under him for four years and experienced personally the lack of his leadership, I found it lacking oftentimes," though the repetition of 'lack' might be redundant?

Sacred is an adjective (Random House Dictionary, 1967). It would seem that one cannot let te word simply dangle: it must refer to something (as in: the sacred land; the sacred text.) Yet the (translated) title of Rudolph Otto's famous book is: The Idea of the Holy. True, it obviously is a Germanism. The (relevant part of the) original title is: Das Heilige. Has that form now become commonplace enough so that I may speak of "The Sacred" as in the title I am contemplating, for a paper discussing interpretation of sacred texts: "On Reading the Sacred"? Answer This is an example of a fused Modifier-Head construction, as described in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002). Here the adjective sacred is functioning as the Head of the noun phrase. But it is also understood as a Modifier of some unexpressed noun. Here are some more examples: the good, the bad and the ugly the French, the English, the Dutch You take the red, and

I expected "light smattering of applause" to mean "few applause" because "light" has the meaning of "small, not heavy". However, the phrase seems to mean "a lot of applause" in the context. For example: The critics were so fulsome in their praise that Scheinhauer, a librettist known to become squeamish after a light smattering of applause, retreated from public view. Does anyone know how to understand the meaning of light smattering of applause ? Answer I think your original intepretation is correct. If Scheinhauer became squeamish after even a light smattering, than the more fulsome praise made him retreat entirely. "Light smattering" is used to contrast "fulsome", to mean exactly what you thought.

Suppose I want to refer to a 24-hour period (from midnight till midnight). The word "day" can in fact mean "24 hours" (as in here ), however it's somewhat ambiguous. I believe that if I say something like "just wait a day", most people will understand it in a common meaning. I could also say "just wait 24 hours", but that sounds a little weird to me, about as much as saying "I want 127.5 grams of cheese, please" in a store. So how would a native speaker refer to the 24-hour period to avoid ambiguity (and being concise in the same time)? Maybe there is a fancy scientific word for it? Answer There's nothing weird about saying 24 hours, but if you want to avoid it you can say until / at / by this time tomorrow .

My senior English teacher was a tad bit confused where the subject for was is in this sentence: As was traditional for unmarried women, Jane lived at home her entire life.

I have a sentence which has an object that is described with an adjective: We need to inform our interested patrons of this change. If I modify "interested" with "more" or "less" , do I connect the words with a hyphen or not? Example sentence: We need to inform our less-interested patrons of this change. Also, please let me know if I have not used the correct terms for sentence parts in this question. Answer According to Whitesmoke , "Hyphens are used to link words that function as a single adjective before a noun." But the stronger rule seems to be, if a hyphen would reduce confusion, use it. IMHO, a hyphen makes your example read more clearly... but according to this Wikipedia article , "Compound adjectives that include comparatives and superlatives with more, most, less or least" are not normally hyphenated. In short, there doesn't appear to be a hard-and-fast rule (wait, should I have not hyphenated that?).

According to englishpage.com, if have to or must expresses certainty, the negative form uses must not . Example: That has to be Jerry. They said he was tall with bright red hair. => That must not be Jerry. They said he has blond hair, not red hair. I learned that must not expresses prohibition (and this case is also listed there) and I've never encountered an exception so far. So, it sounded funny to me and I asked a native English speaker. She's of the opinion that this usage of must not is not right, but she's only sure about British English. Is this usage of must not just wrong? Or is it correct for a certain variation of English? American English, for instance? Or was it correct in former times and nowadays considered archaic? EDIT: Many, if not all, answers state that the proper use is can't . This, however, is not my question. Furthermore, some answers elaborated on the proper meaning of must not in the sense of "not allowed to do". This isn

which is correct: Thank you for your and your team's time or Thank you for yours and your team's time and should (or does it make a difference if) I place commas before and after "and your team's" ... thanks!!

For the organization on the left, is it appropriate to add "The" in front of "Japan Foundation"? That looks very informal to me. (And the name of this organization is actually “Japan foundation” only. You can see it on its official website) For the organization on the right, is it grammatically correct to say "Japan xxx"? I feel the correct expression is "Japanese xxx", like British Council, French Armed Forces, Spanish Army. So, I feel “Japanese Educational Exchanges and Services” or “Educational Exchanges and Services of Japan” are more correct.

You can find in book's pages a single sentence: This page intentionally left blank . It is interesting to note that this statement is false , since the page contains text. Here are two (somewhat) similar examples: This is a secret encoded message which you cannot read, comprehend, or make of any sense! (You can read it, and it makes perfect sense); and This is a short description of the Fraser spiral illusion which, like as Zöllner's illusion and the café wall illusion are based on a principle, like many other visual effects, in which a sequence of tilted elements causes the eye to perceive phantom twists and deviation . (This is a lengthy description). What is the word (maybe a collective noun?) describing such impossible claims/events/phenomena? The closest word I can think of is oxymoron : A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g., faith unfaithful kept him falsely true). However, the problem with oxymoron is that it somehow req

Can this be considered a complete sentence? There lived a princess named Gretchen.

He went fishing in the creek nearby the grocery store. He went fishing in the creek near by the grocery store. He went fishing in the creek near to the grocery store. Could anyone please show me if there is any difference semantically? Answer Nearby in the sentence implies "close at hand or adjacent". From TFD.... nearby, adj. talking about short distances . If something is near, near to , or close to a place or thing, it is a short distance from it. I live in Reinfeld, which is near Lübeck. I stood very near to them. When near and close have this meaning, don't use them immediately in front of a noun. Instead use nearby . He was taken to a nearby hospital He threw the bag into some nearby bushes a nearby town He went fishing in the creek near(by) the grocery store.

What is the pronunciation of the possessive words that already end in s? “The Weasley twins’ friend, Lee Jordan, was doing the commentary for the match.” Do native English speakers pronounce twins and twins’ the same way? Or do they get said as /twɪnziz/ or /twɪnzəz/, and is this just an informal pronunciation? Answer The apostrophe is not a letter. It is not pronounced. It is always silent. It cannot change a word’s pronunciation by its presence or absence. Therefore the twins I know and the twins’ mother will pronounce the “twins” part of it in there exactly the same way. The idea of twins’ having some sort of a /ˈtwɪnzəz/ pronunciation is not just that it is informal; it is not. It is wrong. The word that would be pronounced that way would have to be something like twinses , which does not to my knowledge exist. But if it did, then adding an apostrophe to make it possessive via twinses’ would still leave it pronounced the same way. Apostrophes do not change a word’s pronunc

What is the word for when someone is overly nice and actually isn't nice at all because of the unnecessary added information/comments? For example, they will say things like "Your hair looks so good that wayyyy omg you should do it that way ALL the time! Looks way better than how you usually do it." And the word I'm looking for is not passive aggressive and it is not sarcasm. There is a word for these types of people. What is it? These people think they're being kind but actually blunt and rude. Another example would be for someone to say "hey you're beautiful, but maybe if you didn't wear harsh makeup you would look better" and they intend to sound like they're being nice when you know they don't like you and are saying in out of spite.

I am always confused by these tricky-in my opinion-ones as below. For example, People love their life or lives. Girls always love their boyfriend or boyfriends. People think of their college or colleges as an enjoyable place or enjoyable places. My point is that every time I come across such things, I am not sure about whether an objective or a complement has to be plural, every time the subject is plural. Actually, in the ex1 sentence, I think both of them are what I have seen before. However, the rest 2 sentences are not so sure if I let them be singular. In the ex2, every girl has one boyfriend-IN MOST CASES. Also, in the ex3, everyone attends one college. In that sense, since the subjects are plural, should the objectives or the compliment be pluralized? Or, is it okay if I leave them single as the ex1 sentence? The problem is, though, if I leave them singular they sound like they have ONE boyfriend to share or they go to the same college. It sounds weird to me. Is it just me or is

In the tense of present perfect, I learned that "I have finished the work" means 'recent past' and "The man has died"means'hot news' Are 'recent past' and 'hot news' the same in meaning?

I have heard and seen "only ever" used as in: "I only ever clean my car when the sun is high." I live in Massachusetts and never heard this usage until recently. I understand the meaning, but wonder if this is a regional usage.

Am I wrong in thinking that a phonetical language, for example Spanish, is a language where the words are spelt as they sound

Are there rules of thumb for pinpointing British accents regionally? What other accents do Americans tend to mistake for British? Are there good online resources that can help with this? Audio samples would be essential. EDIT: Also, is there such a thing as a "neutral" British accent, analogous to American broadcaster's midwest pronunciation that is perceived to be the most free of regional characteristics. Answer Check this out in relation to the accent question. I find it extremely interesting to hear accents from different places.

adverbs like inefficient, inexpensive, unnbelievable..., imbossible Is there any roule? When to use? What to do

While studying one word substitution I came across these two words, what I understood till now is like this: Emigrant: One who leaves his own country to reside to another. Immigrant: A person who comes to one country from another to settle. For example: "A Swedish woman decides to emigrate to America. To herself, and to the country of Sweden, the woman is an emigrant to America. To her new American neighbors, the woman is an immigrant from Sweden, implying she has been somewhere else, and now is here, wherever here happens to be. So she has been an emigrant, in coming to America, and now she is a Swedish immigrant." (Quoting from here .) Now what will be the one word for: A person residing in a country of which he is not a citizen To my understanding it seems immigrant should be the correct word, but the answer given in my module is emigrant . Please help me understand whether I am wrong or not. Answer This is about geographical perspective. If you are an American speaki

My professor used the word authentification in a lecture. I have always used authentication. Is it a real word or is authentication the correct term? Answer Authentication is the preferred form in English. The variant authentification is acceptable, but less common—it’s often used by non-native speakers who aren’t aware that it’s less idiomatic in English, because authentification (or an analogue) is the correct form (or at least widely accepted) in many eastern & western European languages: Azerbaijani: autentifikasiyası Basque: autentifikazio Belarusian: аўтэнтыфікацыя (autentyfikatsyja) Bosnian: autentifikacija Corsican: autentificazione Czech: autentifikace Danish: autentificering Dutch: autenti(fi)catie French: authentification German: Authenti(fi)kation Haitian: otantifikasyon Kazakh: аутентификация (autyentifikatsiya) Italian: autentificazione Latvian: autentifikācija Lithuanian: autentifikavimas Luxembourgish: authentifikatioun Romanian: autentificare Russian: аутентиф

I want to say that it's possible that at least one of {A,B} is true, and possibly both of them are true. Is it correct to phrase it as "either A, or B, or both are true".

What is the origin of this phrase? Does this also apply in case of other professions? Like the goldsmith's children have no jewels or the baker's children don't eat cake? Answer The oldest version of a proverb with a similar meaning (i.e. one doesn't always benefit from the product of their trade) is to be found in the Bible, Luke 4:23 Physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done at Capernaum, do also here in thine own country. The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs gives - as Jim already stated - 1546 for the first mention of But who is wurs shod, than the shoemakers wyfe, With shops full of newe shapen shoes all hir lyfe? [1546 J. Heywood Dialogue of Proverbs i. xi. E1V] With reference to the cobbler this proverb exists also in French : Les cordonniers sont les plus mal chaussés . with a first quote by Montaigne : Quand nous veoyons un homme mal chaussé, nous disons que ce n'est pas merveille s'il est chaussetier in his Essais (which he started writin