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In the sentence, below, I am using the French word sans to mean without . Should sans be italicized? Or, should all of "sans human civilization" be italicized? Planet Earth sans human civilization is imagined, at least by Teasdale, to beautiful, harmonious, and ultimately superior to the human-centred world we live in now. OR Planet Earth sans human civilization is imagined, at least by Teasdale, to beautiful, harmonious, and ultimately superior to the human-centred world we live in now. Answer As a matter of style, many U.S. publishers follow the general rules given by the Chicago Manual of Style , fifteenth edition (2003) at 7.51, 7.53, and 7.54 under the heading "FOREIGN WORDS": 7.51 Italics. Italics are used for isolated words and phrases in a foreign language if they are likely to be unfamiliar to readers. [Examples omitted.] ... 7.53 Proper nouns. Foreign proper nouns are not italicized in an English context. [Examples omitted.] 7.54 Familiar foreign w...

I'm looking for a word which describes an annoying behavior that decreases the overall quality of a game or match, specifically in online gaming (Halo, Call of Duty, etc.) The behavior, while not expressly prohibited by the rules and thus not technically cheating, is generally agreed to be undesirable or even unfair by the other players and puts the offending player at a distinct advantage. The following words come to mind, but do not precisely fit: annoying (too broad), trolling (mismatched intent; the player is still trying to win the game, not merely annoy others), ungentlemanly (I'd prefer an genderless term.) I believe unsportsmanlike could be a good fit; I'm looking for either a better fitting word, or a sound justification that one of these words is correct. edit: To be clear, I am looking for an adjective to levy at someone as an insult for behaving in this way. Also, the interest of the offending player is to win the game at the expense of others. The example...

This question is relatively simple. I don't understand why we never use passive form of to infinitive after the adjective unless the subject is "it". For example: He is difficult to please. People consider the example above a correct sentence. But: He is difficult to be pleased. People, for example, my teacher, said it sounds wrong and told me not to write this type of sentence. Is it grammatically flawed, or is it just a stylistic choice? Answer Adjectives which take infinitival phrases as complement fall into three camps. Some adjectives determine our interpretation of the subject of the infinitival clause. Some adjectives determine our interpretation of the object of the infinitival clause. Some adjectives don't determine our interpretation of either the subject or the object of the infinitival clause. Group 1 Adjectives in the first group are often called control adjectives. Generative linguists would say they involve Equi deletion . For our purposes it isn'...

Is there a single word which means "not empty"? That is, a word which one might use to describe a field with one or more cows in it, as opposed to an "empty" field with none? Full or even partially-full are not appropriate, because the number of animals is indeterminate, and the final count could be a single bull [which are best kept on their own] or fifty cows. Or three sheep. And the field is really only full when there is no more space available. I'd prefer a single word, to go with the single word "Empty". Currently I'm using "has animals" which I feel is not particularly succinct. [This is an edit of the original question reproduced below, in an effort to keep it on-topic] I'm trying to figure out the names for different states of a set of items, empty or non-empty. What I came up with so far: EmptyAndFetching, EmptyAndReady, HasItemsAndFetching, HasItemsAndReady, Error HasItems seems awkward, I would rather use one word than...

There are questions on ELU about the phonemic transcriptions of orange in both British and American English in dictionaries. However, this being a site for linguists and all that, I thought I would indulge myself in a question about how people pronounce orange , in terms of what sounds they actually make and the qualities of those sounds in 'minutiae'. What are some narrow transcriptions of the word orange that we might expect in standard Englishes (with a segment by segment explanation)? If you have any interesting narrow transcriptions of non-standard English varieties, also with explanations of the finer features, those would be very welcome too.

Is there a word for people who buys things because they are more expensive or because they are specific brand or label? These people don't buy the items because they are higher quality. They buy them because they want others to think they are "cool." These people can often hardly afford such items and this money could be better spent on other items. This is opposed to other people who might buy more expensive things because they are of better quality. (Who would rarely buy popular brands because their prices are inflated simply because they are popular.)

For example, one of the articles in volume 183 issue 1 (January 2016) of Annals of Mathematics is titled "On the fibration method for zero-cycles and rational points". Why not just call it "The fibration method for zero-cycles and rational points"? Is there any difference in meaning? Conversely, there's an article in the same issue titled "Defining ℤ in ℚ", which could be titled "On defining ℤ in ℚ" with no apparent change in meaning. My perception is that the leading "on" used to be more common (e.g., the very long complete title of Darwin's Origin of Species actually begins "On the Origin of Species"; but even here, the 1859 title page prints the "on" in relatively small letters, suggesting a certain disposability). Answer This naming convention extends back to ancient times. Many of Aristotle's (384–322 BC) works are titled On --- Lucretius (99 - 55 BC) wrote De rerum natura or On the Nature of Th...