Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange |
- Is to be + verb-ing passive voice?
- Clearer and beautiful way to express this phrase "intangible"
- Street Lamps go on - in other words? [closed]
- Could we use 'lawn-proud' in the same sense as 'house-proud'?
- What's a word for someone who only does what they enjoy? [duplicate]
- Word for how the white space between words can form patterns
- What has caused the word bridegroom to mean groom and bride and groom to mean the bride and the groom? [closed]
- Idiom meaning inferring too much from the available evidence
- 'Less good' vs 'worse'
- Is it she and James' or her and James'?
- Less intensive way of saying "negate/nullify"
- NPs containing double genitives: "this harassment of her of yours"
- American accents where /æ/ becomes [eɪ] before /ŋ/. Does /æ/ become [eɪ] before /m/ and /n/ too?
- Can I use 'out of this world' negatively in a sentence
- If I cannot win, then I will make it impossible for you to win
- Word for simultaneously smiling at something heartwarming and exhaling air involuntarily
- Do I need to use a comma before "but" in these examples?
- What's the opposite of "grow up" when used as an interjection?
- Hours or the hours?
- A word that's between 'recommended' and 'awarded'?
- "We merely skimmed the surface of the cities." Does this make sense?
- Skill to Hindcast
- Why can't we say "sign in into"?
- The meaning of "upon one"
- A word for one who has the ability to sleep almost instantly
- Would do that or would have done it?
- Academic name for graphs which curve like a bridge
- Around how old is "a woman of a certain age"?
- Valid? "The river is flowing."
- Should one stick to American style of placing punctuation marks within quotes if one uses the American spelling?
| Is to be + verb-ing passive voice? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 08:56 AM PDT I am a university student. I submitted an essay and a professor told me I should avoid passive voice with examples. But that sounded weird to me. When I asked the professor about this, she sent me a reply as following:
Isn't passive voice be + p.p.? I thought be + -ing was active voice. Is there something I don't know about passive voice? Should I avoid using to be verb in essay regardless of active or passive voice?  |
| Clearer and beautiful way to express this phrase "intangible" Posted: 12 Apr 2021 08:27 AM PDT I am writing a personal essay and reach writer's block on this part
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| Street Lamps go on - in other words? [closed] Posted: 12 Apr 2021 08:12 AM PDT How can I describe it more poetically? Street Lamps light on? Street Lamps flicker on? Street Lamps light up? Thanks! and is street lamp the right word? Or would street lights etc be better?  |
| Could we use 'lawn-proud' in the same sense as 'house-proud'? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 10:26 AM PDT The meaning of the term house-proud apparently has shifted, at least in the US, from meaning
...which is how I think of it, to simply meaning
Given that, would it be a stretch to use the term lawn-proud to describe someone who obsesses over the state of their yard/garden? If it would not be generally understood in that sense, is there a word or a succinct phrase that would fit ?  |
| What's a word for someone who only does what they enjoy? [duplicate] Posted: 12 Apr 2021 08:15 AM PDT Is there a single word for someone who only spends time doing things they like, and shirk their important duties? I am trying to describe Mr. Frederick from Animal Farm, who had "a large, neglected, old-fashioned farm, much overgrown by woodland, with all is pastures worn out and its hedges in a disgraceful condition." It is implied that the farm has gone to such a state because he "spent most of his time in fishing or hunting". I can't think of the right word to describe this, and I'm not even positive there is one. I also want something that emphasizes doing something you enjoy in place of work that needs to get done.  |
| Word for how the white space between words can form patterns Posted: 12 Apr 2021 09:30 AM PDT Nota Bene: I included a term to describe this thing, but I'm not here to invent a word, it was included as a humorous nod; thank you for your patience and understanding! I apologize if this is an odd one; I am aware of the word 'Pareidolia' but I'm wondering if there's a better word for the phenomenon I'm about to describe? Pareidolia being the tendency to (incorrectly?) see patterns in random things, like shapes in clouds or canals on Mars, etc... I'm almost always using my Kindle (I prefer a good Paper book, but I'm partially disabled and a Kindle can carry my whole library without weighing anything) and and I am a fond reader of science and sci-fi, fantasy and historical fiction. The escapism is a big relief for my physical condition. So when reading about the description of some event, I can often find myself day-dreaming, zoning out so that the words on the page can seem a little blurred, as I imagine the thing in my minds eye. When this happens, I often notice that the white-space between letters can form patterns too, and I've trained to filter out the line height spacing. I often can see strong diagonal lines, misshaped circles and similar. Sometimes it can even look like a crude lightning strike! One could possibly stretch a metaphor to suggest that it's the prosaic equivalent of a Moiré pattern...? I do know it is fundamentally caused by our brains innate ability to notice (or invent) patterns, but it's a beautiful and sometimes appropriate visualisation too. For example, in one book was the description of an alien village with sloping conical towers as the buildings. On the same page, almost directly afterwards, the combination of white-space and letters made such an very obvious 70° slanted line, that I could easily envisage the sloping sides of the building being described! This sites posting rules indicate that I should include an example, and I do recognise that this is essentially inverted ASCII Art, but that term itself has some negative connotations.. Besides which, that art style is forced, whereas the patterns I see are just the natural shapes formed by the gaps between words! The following example is obviously exaggerated and not well written, but you should see the "Eidolexis*" I should re-iterate that changing the font-face or size completely ruined the illusion, so it was quite serendipitous! If the above pre-formatted text is garbled, basically I am describing: "This was in PF Hamilton's, Nights-Dawn trilogy Book 1, wherein he described the Tyrathca village on Lalonde where they farmed an Olive like fruit, Oily and disgusting to Humans, but like good chocolate to the Tyrathca" So, In summary, Is there a better word for this experience? I ask this, as truthfully, I don't really believe that it's an example of Pareidolia. Simply, the shapes are not being invented by the brain, they exist but are not always instantly obvious to the reader, they're waiting to be acknowledged! I could easily imagine this as a visual art form, Imagine a Poem that describes a Thing™, but the layout of the words would describe the shape of the Thing™.
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| Posted: 12 Apr 2021 04:28 AM PDT What has caused the word bridegroom to mean groom, and bride and groom to mean a bride and groom? There isn't really anything else to the question.  |
| Idiom meaning inferring too much from the available evidence Posted: 12 Apr 2021 08:39 AM PDT Suppose there is a little bit of evidence available, such as a red stain on the wall, and one starts to deduce "facts" from that, for example, that someone cut their finger by a knife yesterday morning near the wall (rather similar to Sherlock Holmes), though it can also be the case that someone pierced their finger by a lancet yesterday evening. In other words, rival theories are underdetermined by the available evidence. Is there any idiom to describe the fact that he is "draining" too much from the evidence "well", or "milking" too much from the evidence "cow"?  |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2021 03:32 AM PDT Garner's fourth , page 263, reads
Is good here an adverb? Why not use worse instead of less good?  |
| Is it she and James' or her and James'? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 02:15 AM PDT The sentence is— "Her and James' life shouldn't be a topic of discussion for them." I believe that it should be she and James' and not her James'. Which version of the sentence is correct? Please help me out, thank you.  |
| Less intensive way of saying "negate/nullify" Posted: 12 Apr 2021 04:27 AM PDT I am trying to revise the following statement:
The Is there any other
Thank you!  |
| NPs containing double genitives: "this harassment of her of yours" Posted: 12 Apr 2021 10:37 AM PDT I am interested in which nominal phrases of the general form sound more or less grammatical to most speakers. Primarily, what interests me about them (for those who accept them as fully idiomatic) is the restrictions over the admissible instances of Article and Noun. For instance, it seems that demonstrative determiners are OK (Kayne 1981 gives (1a) as an example) but definite articles aren't (1b). Also, besides event nominalizations like harassment, some nouns like picture (2a) appear to me to be more amenable to the construction than other nouns like story (2b). Is this correct? Does anyone have any clue as to what may be going on here? My observations are super exploratory, so I'd really appreciate some external input/more examples to mull over.  |
| American accents where /æ/ becomes [eɪ] before /ŋ/. Does /æ/ become [eɪ] before /m/ and /n/ too? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 05:12 AM PDT I know that in Californian accent, /æ/ is sometimes realized as [eɪ] only before /ŋ/. So words like hang, bang, rang, sang, gang, which normally end with /æŋ/, end with [eɪŋ]. The reason why it happens is usually attributed to the effect of the following "nasal" sound [ŋ], but I'm not certain about the reason. Also I have only heard it for words with /ŋ/, not other nasals. I have two closely related questions (to which I didn't find an answer by searching cursorily):
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| Can I use 'out of this world' negatively in a sentence Posted: 12 Apr 2021 07:31 AM PDT Can I say " their stupidity is out of this world. Its kinda amusing" ? And what are the other ways to say it  |
| If I cannot win, then I will make it impossible for you to win Posted: 12 Apr 2021 02:17 AM PDT We have a joke about a foreigner that went to a wet market in zone 1 and saw a farmer selling live frogs in an open basket. As we all know, frogs jump. Actually, they jump about quite a bit when in a confined space. When the foreigner pointed that out and asked, "Aren't you worried these frogs will escape?" The farmer replied,
Another example could be seen in traffic. Few drivers here use the directional signals when changing lanes. Why? Although covered ad nauseam on the Driver's test, it has become a "cultural" thing: basically people here do not like other people getting in front of them. It becomes a competition to see who can occupy that space first, and it turns into a Mario Andretti situation. Too often it ends when neither one can occupy the space and both drivers have actually missed their turn. From halfway around the world, in Saudi Arabia, another example. Someone told me about an experience they once had in Jeddah. He was waiting for someone on the main concourse, and positioned himself nicely near one of the columns in order to to protect his right hand. A Saudi local decided he also wanted to occupy that advantageous spot, and walked right up to my friend and tried to do a "face-off". They were pretty much nose-to-nose, and neither one backed down. The result was they both missed their arriving pick-ups.
...is too broad. So, is there an expression that means
EDIT was suggested: however that means something else.
My examples exclude "having something for which one has no use." All the frogs want to escape. All the drivers want to get ahead. All couriers want to do their pick-up. It is their overly-competitive attitude towards each other that prevents them from winning.  |
| Word for simultaneously smiling at something heartwarming and exhaling air involuntarily Posted: 12 Apr 2021 05:01 AM PDT What is the word or phrase for that action when someone smiles at something heartwarming and exhales air involuntarily at the same time? It's not a laugh or even a chuckle, more like a hum with no vocalization.  |
| Do I need to use a comma before "but" in these examples? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 07:06 AM PDT
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| What's the opposite of "grow up" when used as an interjection? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 01:54 AM PDT In casual conversation, one is often told to "Grow up!", ie be more mature and more like an adult. What would be the most accurate phrase to express the opposite sentiment - you need to loosen up, embrace your inner child, appreciate the fun in activities usually seen as frivolous, etc?
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| Posted: 12 Apr 2021 09:06 AM PDT I would like to ask a question. Which sentence is correct? Yes, we can change hours Or Yes, we can change the hours Is only one answer correct or both are depending on the context?  |
| A word that's between 'recommended' and 'awarded'? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 06:01 AM PDT Is there a word that is between 'recommended' and 'awarded', take for example: The boss recommended the Prize to Jill. and The boss awarded the Prize to Jill. I don't want it to be emphasized that the boss is the only one gave it to her, but the truth is, the boss is the only one who gave it to her. I wish for a sense that it was agreed upon to give Jill the award without saying 'the department'. Any comments?  |
| "We merely skimmed the surface of the cities." Does this make sense? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 03:01 AM PDT Does that make sense to describe how our travel was rushed therefore couldn't fully enjoy what the cities have to offer?  |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2021 02:44 AM PDT I wonder whether it's correct to say hindcastive, similarly to what we do with predictive to denote the ability to predict. If not, what would be an equivalent term? possibly:
NB: the term isn't even listed in the OED, unlike in Webster's, but it's known in scientific literature. Thanks!  |
| Why can't we say "sign in into"? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 02:03 AM PDT When it comes to the sentence However, I cannot find the proper explanation as to why it's improper to say My partner and I are both engineers, so his argument is that when you sign in, you are in fact going INTO an account. This just does not sit right with me, but I cannot put into words why. Also, would the sentence  |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2021 02:38 AM PDT What is the meaning of "upon me" in the following excerpt of one of Whitman's poems? Dictionaries don't help in this case.
What I guess is he means "the life that doesn't exhibit itself is strong and sits by me".  |
| A word for one who has the ability to sleep almost instantly Posted: 12 Apr 2021 10:56 AM PDT I am looking for a word to describe a person that can fall asleep 'as their head hits the pillow'. To add context: my wife falls asleep seconds after she decides that she wants to sleep. Not just in bed, but on the sofa, on the train - almost anywhere where there is a relatively comfortable place to sleep. Even on a moving escalator. She is a person who I consider to be happy and at peace with herself. I mention this as I am not looking for a term to describe someone with a medical condition with no control over when they sleep.  |
| Would do that or would have done it? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 04:04 AM PDT Is there a situation in which following sentence is correct?
If so, then in which context is it right? I mean, if the sentence is started by "could have" then the next part should contain "have" after "would" in this case? Is this a rule or does it all depend on the situation in which you're using it? And if so, please present me the right context.  |
| Academic name for graphs which curve like a bridge Posted: 12 Apr 2021 04:31 AM PDT These are the images of the graphs I want to know the academic names:
I've googled and learnt that their names are Concave Down Curve and Concave Up Curve. However, I want to know if there are any other names for these graphs as I want to use them in a sentence like:
Edit 1: Guys, thank you for your inputs. However, my question was not that related to math, but was to find a good descriptive sentence for my IELTS writing. Here is the graph I came across in the test:
I noticed that, as people get older, women tend to do more exercises, and then less, their trend shapes like a bridge, while a reversion of that can be seen in men. Now, if I were to compare these two trends while trying to sound academic, should I write something similar to the following?
Could you guys give me a more well structured and better sentence without sacrificing the "concave down curve or u-shaped curve" because I really want to include those terms.  |
| Around how old is "a woman of a certain age"? Posted: 12 Apr 2021 06:38 AM PDT "A woman of a certain age" is a common saying. It means more than "a woman of a given age", "a woman who could be any age" or "female, without respect to age". It's usage instead seems to suggest a much more specific period of life. Around what age is a woman "of a certain age"?  |
| Valid? "The river is flowing." Posted: 12 Apr 2021 02:25 AM PDT What is the meaning of the "the river is flowing?" Is this valid usage?
The river is already a flow by definition. Can the river be "not flowing?"  |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2021 09:52 AM PDT According to Wikipedia, there are two ways to use punctation marks when it comes to quoting. Basically, we have the British style, where punctation marks that don't come from the quoted material "is put outside the quote", like I just did. In the American style, on the other hand, punctation marks that belongs to the original sentence, that the quoted material is put within, should be "placed within the quote itself," like I just did. Now, I really, really, prefer the British style, since this is the way I've always done it, including when I write in my native language. However, at the same time, I prefer to use the american spelling and usage of words. Is this mixing behavior on my part acceptable? It is mentioned in the Wikipedia article linked to above that "many American style guides specific to certain specialties, such as legal writing and linguistics, prefer British style." However, is there a general rule (or maybe a strong recommendation), for example if I'm just writing an essay or, I don't know, a blogpost, regarding how I can mix the different spellings and punctation mark rules?  |
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