Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

I saw him (get) arrested

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 10:39 AM PDT

If we're talking about the complete entirety of the action (not after the action is finished), which ones of the following would be correct?

  1. I saw him arrested.

  2. I saw him get arrested.

  3. His parents saw him awarded the winner's medal.

  4. His parents saw him get awarded the winner's medal.

Displaced nuclear stress involving anaphoric reference,

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 10:22 AM PDT

Page 277 of Beyond the Segment: Stress, Rhythm and Intonation reads

  • Jane said she'd been delighted long enough and Margaret offended her.

The nuclear stress rule tells us that nuclear stress falls on the last stressed syllable, which seems to be
offended. However, anaphoric references tend not to be stressed; so, if Jane's comment that she's d been delighted long enough is considered to be offensive in the context, then the word offended is an anaphoric reference, in which case it would not be stressed, which means it obviously does not carry the nuclear stress of the utterance, but this is displaced to an earlier position, namely, to the stressed syllable of the word Margaret.

Could somebody elaborate on what anaphoric relation is going on here?

In the example, who do the pronouns she and her refer to?

Word for someone who is constantly yet excessively stressed

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 10:00 AM PDT

What is a noun for someone who unduly stresses? For example, a worrywart is someone who constantly yet excessively worries. However, there is a vast difference between "stressing" and "worrying," so "bundle of nerves" does not count. Therefore, a _______ is someone who constantly yet excessively stresses.

Any help is appreciated!

is there a word to describe " understand each other without words esp. in a teamwork"?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 09:00 AM PDT

Especially when the players work in a team for a long period and they know each other very well, therefore they can guess what teammate wanna do next even without words. Is there any word to describe this phenomenon?

What is the meaning of "on the side of the future"?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 08:59 AM PDT

I just came across this article titled "ON THE SIDE OF THE FUTURE". Tried to google it, but couldn't find any relevant meaning of this expression.

What word could describe the movement of a parked car inside which a couple is making out?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 11:24 AM PDT

"The car moved up and down", seems too simple. Maybe "sway", but it seems soft to me.

Is there a word to describe the portion of one's total funds that may be spent as opposed to the portion which must be held on to?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 08:49 AM PDT

I cannot think what else I might add...

Pronunciation of the word stereotype

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 08:52 AM PDT

Should the word "stereotype" sounds like /ˈster.i.ə.taɪp/ like in the dictionary, instead of "stereo"+"type" which is the way I felt most peoples are pronouncing with? If so, is there any meaning for the silence O?

What dose the word ion at the end of a word [closed]

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 07:53 AM PDT

I need help, I have a question in school about a suffix what does ion mean at the end of a word like invention?

What did James Baldwin mean by "as clean as a bone"?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 08:13 AM PDT

In his interview with The Paris Review, James Baldwin in answer to the question "As your experience about writing accrues, what would you say increases with knowledge?", says:

You learn how little you know. It becomes much more difficult because the hardest thing in the world is simplicity. And the most fearful thing, too. It becomes more difficult because you have to strip yourself of all your disguises, some of which you didn't know you had. You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.

The idiom struck me as odd because I'd never come across any such idiom before. This prompted a quick search on the Internet but to no avail.

So what was Baldwin's idea behind the metaphor? I'm guessing he was hinting at some sort of "Occam's razor" applied to writing, as it were— that is, writing should be kept as simple as possible and stripped of any fripperies, like a bone stripped of all flesh. I'm not sure though, and hence the question. But even if that be the case, isn't it a rather poor metaphor considering "stripping a bone clean of its meat" essentially doesn't leave much to savour?

Is it "nobody's business but the Turks" or "nobody's business but the Turks'"?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 06:55 AM PDT

Is it nobody's business but the Turks (it's nobody's business, except that it is the business of the Turks); or is it nobody's business but the Turks' (it's nobody's business, except that it is the Turks' business)? Should there be an apostrophe or not?

The phrase, for context, is from the song "Constantinople" by They Might Be Giants.

Istanbul was Constantinople.
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople.
Been a long time gone, oh Constantinople.
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks

what can I name the result of a divide process?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 08:49 AM PDT

I'm a computer programmer who spends a lot of time thinking of good English names for variables which can be understandable for anyone reading my code.

Now think of my program that can divide a fabric roll into two or more rolls (virtual fabrics obviously), and I have to name the results.

Just imagine I tag the divided roll with divided-roll.

How can I tag the results : can I use dividee-rolls?

divide process

What's your suggestion for the tag?

Any help would be appreciated.

How to say these words in academic writing? [closed]

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 06:44 AM PDT

  1. grab attention
  2. the talk of the town
  3. fly in the ointment

How to transfer these words in an academic way?

Why did "it" lose its initial 'h' but other pronouns such as "him" and "her" didn't?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 07:45 AM PDT

The pronouns it, him, her had an initial h in the older forms of English which has been retained in her, him, but lost in it (formerly hit).

Etymology of it (Wikitionary):

From Middle English it, hit ( > dialectal English hit ("it")), from Old English hit ("it"), from Proto-Germanic *hit

The word it had an initial h in both spelling & pronunciation but was then lost in Middle English onwards. Other pronouns such as him, her had also an initial h in Middle & Old English but has been retained.

Was this an irregular change or is there any explanation for the loss of initial h in that particular word?

Does English allow /eɪʃ/ in the end of a syllable (in the same syllable)?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 04:11 AM PDT

The sound /ʃ/ is almost always spelled with more than one letter i.e. with a digraph unlike, say, /p/ which is spelled with a single letter (pan, pen, pie). I have noticed a particular pattern: vowels before digraphs are usually short and not long (or diphthongs). The /ʃ/ sound is spelled with a digraph so I assume the vowel before "sh" is usually short. Other sounds such as /p/ (shape), /t/ (hate), /k/ (make) and even /tʃ/ (aitch) can occur after /eɪ/.

Also notice that /-eɪk/ is never, in my opinion, spelled with -ck.

It may seem to be confusing spelling and pronunciation but both of them are closely related to each other. If English allows /eɪʃ/ in the end of the same syllable (or in the end of a word), then it might be possible to have a long vowel/ diphthong before the digraph "sh". However, I haven't been able to find any word in which /ʃ/ is spelled with a digraph and has a long vowel/ diphthong before it which led my to my question:

  • Does English allow /eɪʃ/ in the same syllable?

Is it proper to start a sentence with an Arabic numeral?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 04:15 AM PDT

For example: 3 monkeys jump on the bed.

Why does "moot" have two nearly opposite meanings

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 04:58 AM PDT

Moot can mean

  • Subject to debate; arguable or unsettled.
  • Of no practical importance; irrelevant.

These two seem to me to be opposites in many cases. I've seen people say "that's a moot point" in response to a proposal/idea: do they mean "that warrants debate" or "we should not bother talking about this"?

Is there a correct usage, or a way to use it while avoiding ambiguity? Or have I misunderstood the definition?

Confusion with parallelism in verb tenses

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 11:07 AM PDT

I came across a sentence: Rural hospitals across the US face financial losses and, as a result, have struggled to stay open.

My inclination is that this sentence is not quite correct because of the lack of parallelism between "face" and "have struggled". But does the phrase "as a result" somehow make the change of tense acceptable?

Thanks!

What would you call someone who rather not have something than have it with bad sides?

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 04:00 AM PDT

I wondered this when I was thinking about relationships but could apply to other situations. Let's say someone has troubled relationship with their siblings so they'd rather not having them to putting up with them. Or they ended up with a pet but they'd rather not have it and not deal with it's responsibilities. Or they are assigned a project with good prospects but wouldnt want to do it because of risks.

I was thinking more of apathetic than slothful. I thought picky or idealist but they're not quite right.

Began to trace it through

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 10:02 AM PDT

Voldemort is writing his name into the air.

"He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air.

Why through? I can't find the appropriate definition in dictionary. Please help me out.

'Voluntary/Involuntary' forms of verbs expressing the 5 senses

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 06:09 AM PDT

Is there any verb to express the 'voluntary/involuntary' aspect of the sensations of Taste, Smell and Touch as there is for Sight (to look/to see) and for Hearing (to listen/to hear)?

Is there a specific word to (scholarly) point out this distinction?

Phrasal verbs as hyphenated adjectives

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 05:03 AM PDT

So I recently had a question of how to translate a seemingly simple phrase which gave rise to a really puzzling dilemma. The phrase itself was "the eye which had been operated on", it was passive. However, the original language only used one single adjective + "eye", and I wanted to somehow retain that so as to not make the translation too wordy.

One option was to simply say "the treated eye", which was OK. But I also wondered whether I could use "operate" as an adjective. Which led me to 2 options: "the operated eye" and "the operated-on eye". The latter seemed to be more suitable because we normally say that surgeons "operate on" an organ/limb/tumor/... and people have operations "on" parts of their bodies, so I ought to keep the preposition. The former sounded a little ambiguous, since "operate" could be confused with "manipulated, controlled" as in a "machine which is operated from a control panel".

My question is twofold, I guess. Am I correct in thinking that phrasal verbs may be used as hyphenated phrasal adjectives and, if so, is doing so appropriate in this particular case?

What's the origin of the phrase "bubble gum and shoe strings"

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 06:03 AM PDT

I'm not entirely sure if the idiom should be "bubble gum and shoe strings" or "bubble gum and matchsticks"; however from the context it looks like it refers to a cheaply done repair job, which may be related to "a shoe string budget".

How to say being ahead at the start

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 08:04 AM PDT

I am writing to a Professor as a prospective graduate student. I want to tell him that I will be one step ahead at the begging of my masters program since I have taken several graduate courses already. So my tone should convey that I am a promising candidate and should not be boastful. I want to tell him that by assessing this knowledge I will start my master thesis sooner and I would be more successful. I guess that there are good ways in English to state this point. I would be very grateful if anyone could help me to express it.

Type of usage/ term

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 09:06 AM PDT

His features contort with obvious pain as he tells his story, his memories of Caroline clearly something he holds precious.

What makes the bolded section dependent? What's it missing to form a clause. Is it a type of supplemental clause.?

Sentence starting with a number

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 08:24 AM PDT

  • 71 people were rescued from the sinking ferry by the Latvian helicopter crew. (This is not wrong, but it is untidy.)
  • The Latvian helicopter crew rescued 71 people from the sinking ferry. (This re-worded version is tidier.)
  • Seventy-one people were rescued from the sinking ferry by the Latvian helicopter crew. (In this version, the number has been written in full to avoid starting the sentence with 71.)

Above are the examples from grammar-monster.

Are the guidelines sound, and backed by a recognised authority?

Is there any limit to the number, I mean, does the same rule apply to the following sentence:

7100 people were rescued from the sinking ferry by the Latvian helicopter crew.

Starting a quote with a number

Posted: 31 Mar 2021 04:18 AM PDT

I know you cannot start a sentence with a number written digitally (how do I say this?). For example I could not write:

2013 is almost over!

Can a quotation begin with a number, though?

For example, could I write

The man said, "2013 was the worst!"

or would I need to spell the year out?
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