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Please consider the following: My wide range of abilities have helped my team succeed. My wide range of abilities has helped my team succeed. Microsoft Word identifies the first as a subject-verb agreement error. However, from my perspective, the "wide range" is not the subject, but rather a descriptor of the abilities. Are either of these sentences wrong, and is one preferred? Answer In such cases, ‘. . . when there are agreement options, the singular verb seems to invoke the set, whereas the plural verb makes us aware of the individual items in it’ (The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’). That leaves the choice of both available to the writer, depending on the aspect to be emphasised.

When speaking about The Netherlands as a country , should it be considered as a plural or singular word? Examples: The Netherlands is a country. The Netherlands are famous for cheese and windmills. Is there a general rule for this? Do instances such as "The United States of America" and "The United Arab Emirates" follow the same rule?

Where did this come from? It sounds nasty to me (I am not a native speaker). But it seems correct. Can somebody explain this? Answer If you're talking about you and your spouse, it's not possible to be "married with " anyone; you can only be "married to " someone. Hence there is no ambiguity in saying "married with three kids", as the "with" cannot be associated with "married".

I have a German friend who keeps saying things like, "would you eventually like to do X" and "X is eventually not a big problem." I eventually (hehe) started correcting her, saying we don't use the word "eventually" in this way, but there is something nagging in my mind that there is maybe a similar word in English that we do use. In the sense above, "eventuell" means "perhaps", "possible", "possibly". Is there word with similar etymology to "eventually" that is used in this way, or can "eventually" actually be used to refer to possibility, rather than chronology? Answer Eventual(lly) and actual(ly) are the two most common 'false friends' between English and several European languages: French, Spanish and Polish, for example, as well as German. In all these languages, 'eventual' means 'possible', and 'actual' means 'current'. This meaning is not however...

There was an ad on telly I saw, saying Relax, knowing your home is safe Is this a complete sentence that is grammatically correct? Could this go in an essay? What is the technical word for "knowing"? I know it's a verb. Would you call a present continuous verb and that's it? What about this sentence Become part of this website, exploring new worlds and games Is this an okay sentence?

I recently posted a post on Reddit about my app for people with autism, cerebral palsy and other diseases . Someone pointed out usage of "mental handicap" as offensive, but the comment has disappeared before I read it. Are these considered offensive? Mental handicap Mental disorder Mental disease Mentally disabled Person with special needs Mentally challenged Could you please help me? I don't want to offend anybody. What are the best/"safest" terms to use? Answer Mental handicap - offensive. (period) Mental disorder - not true of Cerebral Palsy (it affects physical movement only in a majority of cases) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy . Not universally accepted as true of all autism. https://www.mencap.org.uk/learning-disability-explained/conditions/autism-and-aspergers-syndrome Mental disease - Not true of Cerebral Palsy (see above). Not universally accepted as true of all autism. Mentally disabled - Not true of Cerebral Palsy (see above). Not ...

In this sentence, is it necessary to include a period with et al? This is an interesting paper, written by G. Andrews et al. Here, et al means Dr. X, Dr. Y, and Dr.Z. Does the second et al need a period? Like et al.? Answer Yes, it should always be accompanied by a period. Since et al. is the abbreviation of and others , where et al. could be an abbreviation for et alii , et aliae or et alia when referring to masculine, feminine or gender neutral groups respectively.

With Neil Armstrong's death today, many news sites are posting articles that quote Neil Armstrong as "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.". My question is, does the quote make sense without the 'a'? and what is the history of the 'a' or not 'a'?

I see three different ways of hyphenating the phrase "six month old". Six-month old: A six-month old poses with a machine gun owned by supporters of the Free Syrian Army. Six-month-old: Fraud alert closes account of six-month-old baby girl Six month old: Rebecca Judd, a model, TV personality and a new mother to Oscar (her six month old son with AFL star Chris Judd) is a self-confessed happy snapper. Is there a significance to these differences? Answer There is a convention in English that if multiple words work together as a single adjective -- usually an adjective/noun pair -- they are hyphenated for clarity. For exmample, if you have a plan that covers 5 years, you refer to it as a "five-year plan". This avoids any confusion that you might mean that you have five year-plans as opposed to one five-year plan. Similarly an "open-door policy" is a policy about open doors; an "open door policy" is an open policy about doors. An "old-dog lea...

How do you use "have had", "had had", or "has had" grammatically correct?

I am confused by the use of the word being to refer to a static thing. How can this word that appears to clearly be a verb gerund get turned around to be used as a thing?

Sorry if the title is poor. I am having a hard time thinking of a good title. If I wanted to say something like: "We will have 5 two-hour sessions". Is there a proper way of listing this? "Five 2-hour sessions"? "5 2-hour sessions"? "5 two-hour sessions"? "Five two-hour sessions"? Answer Many style guides (some? My papers must conform to Turabian's Manual ) say to either use numerals or spell out the numbers—don't mix and match formats. That said, I find five 2-hour sessions to be more readable than five two-hour sessions .

When reading to an audience, or speaking in conversation, when is it appropriate to use the original pronunciation of a foreign word versus the English pronunciation (assuming you know the appropriate pronunciation for it)? Is it considered rude, or condescending? Or is it considered a mark of being knowledgeable? One of the things to consider are place names. When referring to Paris, France, should it be pronounced with the silent 'S' as the French would say it, or with the 'S'? Should Hiroshima be pronounced as a Japanese speaker would pronounce it slightly more emphasis on RO, rather than the SHI? Should Mount Pinatubo be pronounced as a Filipino speaker would pronounce it with shorter stronger vowels, or the longer vowels? (e.g. Pi as is 'pick' rather than 'pea'.) Should Wichita be pronounces as the original "shi" rather than the modern "chi"? Pronounce pesos or sombrero as a Spanish speaker 'eh' or the English 'ay...

Which form is correct (or more correct): reimplement or re-implement? And to extend the question a little bit, are there any rules concerning both, e.g. re-scan or rescan, re-evaluation or reevaluation? Edit: The primary question is if both versions are correct (or which one is more correct from the English grammar's point of view). I know that both are in use, it's easy to do Google search for example to find out that "reimplement" is even more widely used than "re-implement". But in that case, why LibreOffice marks "reimplement" as incorrect? Is the construction informal? Incorrect? Because clearly is quite popular. The second part of the question is somehow answered by the other question pointed to in the comment, e.g. I may use the hyphen if that makes the meaning more clear (which doesn't apply to this case IMHO). Answer Thanks for all the answers, but I found what I was looking for in the Hyphens with the Prefix re article: Rule: Use t...

I want a word that can sum up one's experiences in a battlefield but I am unable to find the proper terminology for this purpose. Military badges are normally placed on the left shoulder as well as the upper left chest of military personnels. What is the proper name for these areas which badges would be placed on? Answer Well for the US military that have this practice (many do, I know): Shoulder sleeve insignia or SSI as an abbreviation. Interesting to note that when it is on the right shoulder, it indicates former service, not current. The article linked to above notes that they are not continuing with this custom on newer uniforms, opting for a Combat Service Identification Badge (CSIB) instead. :-/

Suffixing by -rama, -orama or -arama — how did this begin? I mean words like futurama, foodarama , etc. Answer Etymonline to the rescue: -rama noun suffix meaning "spectacular display or instance of," 1824, abstracted from panorama , ultimately from Greek horama [ ὅραμα ] "sight."

In this context: trying to become a staple amongst the community Answer Something that has become both common and expected in the same sense that bread and milk are staple foods: a necessary commodity for which demand is constant

I've changed my mind a number of times about which of these variants works best: the second most northerly coffee shop in Seattle the second-most-northerly coffee shop in Seattle the second-most northerly coffee shop in Seattle the second most-northerly coffee shop in Seattle I've tried to do a little research, but I'm not even sure what to call something like this, so I haven't had much luck. Any guidance on what is considered most clear/correct would be much appreciated!

One who creates is a creator. What is one who updates? An updater? An updator? The last one seems more logical, but also wrong. Answer According to Dr. Goodword's Language Blog , Generally, -or is a Latin suffix and -er is the Germanic equivalent meaning, roughly, “one who Vs”, where V represents any verb. Words borrowed directly from Latin, then, tend to end with -or: governor, calculator, arbitrator, legislator, alternator. Words of Germanic origin (English is a Germanic language) generally take -er: runner, thinker, worker, joker. However, two factors muddy the water. English borrowed many words from French in the Middle Ages and the French equivalent of -or and -er, is -eur. English generally reduced that suffix to -er, keeping it only in a few words borrowed late: amateur, restaurateur, raconteur [...] [...] you need to know the etymologies of many of the verbs that -er and -or are added to, in order to know how to distribute them. You can be sure that verbs ending with -ize ...

While browsing a set of lecture slides, I encountered this line: Catch up/overtake rate in which overtake rate looks odd to me. As far as I know, a verb may act as an adjective in a couple different ways, e.g., in its gerund (present participle) or past participle forms. But this line takes the imperative form of the verb (so its ”bare” or to -less infinitive) and uses it as an adjective (or noun?) to modify the noun rate . So, I'm just wondering whether the lecturer had meant to write overtak ing rate here and this was just a mistake, or whether overtake rate is indeed a legit piece of composition in English. Background In space dynamics, when two objects are in non-co-orbital circular orbits, the one which is rotating in the lower orbit overtakes the one in the higher orbit because the former’s velocity is higher than that of the latter. The lecturer tries to call this phenomenon its overtake rate . So the question is, can overtake , which is listed in the dictionary only as ...