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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...