Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange |
- "Mitochondria IS the powerhouse of the cell" is it this a grammatically correct statement?
- In open questions with "am", where is the subject?
- When to omit the article before a noun?
- How can I figure out (the most) common modifiers used with a given word?
- What is a word that means to not take the past into account?
- Word usage: Competitive
- Usage of an article in a specific sentence
- Why is the answer for this question TRUE?
- What is wrong with the sentence : Will you help me to find for my english notebook? I'm tired [migrated]
- How would you describe a situation where you can only stop something by doing it first?
- Does the word dishumble exist? [closed]
- Which pronoun (you vs. I) to use while answering word problems in mathematics?
- Simile and metaphor without any clause
- What's the correct form of this verb, "speculated"?
- Does "retail" also mean something I don't understand?
- 'Nobodys first choice' or 'no ones first choice' which is correct?
- Can I write so? [closed]
- Articles in general speaking
- Is there a literary term which refers to works of art which include false statements or implications about the reality outside of the text?
- Can anyone explain the grammar rules used to form this sentence?
- Idiom meaning inferring too much from the available evidence
- Is there a word to describe something that is only capable of doing one thing? [duplicate]
- Is there a word that could mean both serious and humorous?
- Which sentence is correct? Which tense is better to use?
- Should “megafauna” take a plural verb or a singular one?
- "erupted in violence" vs. "erupted into violence" [closed]
- Proper use of ‘case-in-point’ at the start of a statement
- What is the word for "job-hopper" with a positive connotation?
- Everybody had a different opinion. Is there an idiom for this?
- Word to describe both adding and removing but not updating
| "Mitochondria IS the powerhouse of the cell" is it this a grammatically correct statement? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 10:43 AM PDT In Science as well as pop-culture the phrase "Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell". However, "Mitochondria" is the singular form of "mitochondrion" which leads me to think that the popular phrase is a grammatically incorrect one since it uses "is" whereas it should be using "are" for e.g "Mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell" Am I missing something here is there a different aspect in the context of how these words are used generally in the Scientific terminology or the popular use of this phrase is just grammatically incorrect.  |
| In open questions with "am", where is the subject? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 10:01 AM PDT Ex. What kind of fool are you? Ex. Whose sister is she? In these questions, I understand that there is a noun or noun phrase connected by the verb "to be" to another noun. what + kind of fool + are + you whose + sister + is + she In these sentences, where is the subject? And what is the other noun?  |
| When to omit the article before a noun? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 09:24 AM PDT I am confused about when one can omit the article "the"/"a" in front of a noun. Examples are
In all of these, omitting the article feels more natural to me. I tried to verify my gut feeling by comparing the sentences to the rules presented here, but I can't find any rule that justifies the articles' omission. Are there other rules that apply regarding the omission of articles before nouns? What is the correct way to formulate the above examples? Does including/excluding the article change the sentences meaning? Related questions: Why do people omit the definite article?, Omitting article before "evaluation"  |
| How can I figure out (the most) common modifiers used with a given word? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 09:22 AM PDT I'm wondering if there is a tool that can provide the answer to questions like the following:
With answers like ("fast", "slow", "hard") and "grassy". Things like google ngrams, or simply googling can be very useful in establishing a popularity ranking between two or more options, but I can't think of a way to adapt them to start from scratch.  |
| What is a word that means to not take the past into account? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 09:57 AM PDT Short sighted is a good word that often means failure to or inability to take the future into account. What is a word that means a failure to take the past into account?  |
| Posted: 15 Apr 2021 09:09 AM PDT
This is a quote from a parent workshop. The parents are asked to indicate how well they relate to some statements, the quote being one of them. I check https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/competitive#:~:text=%3A%20of%20or%20relating%20to%20a,to%20compete%20successfully%20with%20others and see that competitive has two possible meanings here: Does competitive here mean the "I" feel that myself is in a competition with other parents? Or does it mean "I" am desiring to compete with or even win over other parents?  |
| Usage of an article in a specific sentence Posted: 15 Apr 2021 08:53 AM PDT "It also affects the general mood and happiness of a smoker". If I am writing about smokers in general, do I need to put the definite article before the word general?  |
| Why is the answer for this question TRUE? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 08:08 AM PDT I really don't get why the answer for the below question is true. "According to recent data about 21% of adult smokers used e-cigarettes in 2015, which is more than double the rate in 2016". For me "which is more than double" clearly refers to the number of smokers in 2015 and if 2015 is double to 2016 it means there was more smokers in 2015. I am aware that my thinking is wrong but I really cannot understand why. Even when I paste this sentence into google translate and translate it into Polish the results are exactly the same as my understanding. Maybe it is some kind of a grammar construction that needs to be explained somehow? Thx for your help!
 |
| Posted: 15 Apr 2021 08:01 AM PDT This is an error identification questions, one of the option contains an error. Will you help me to find for my english notebook? I'm tired. (a)will (b)help (c)to find (d)I'm tired I found nothing wrong with the sentence, can someone shed some light on this?  |
| How would you describe a situation where you can only stop something by doing it first? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 08:52 AM PDT I'd like to know what this situation is called. The gist is the only way you can stop something is by doing it first. A real world example is a MS Windows feature called sticky keys. You can turn on sticky keys by pressing the shift key 5 times in quick succession. It will then make a beep. Every time the shift key is pressed another beep will occur. Now someone says that the beep from pressing the shift key must stop (no speaker control) but the shift key must still be usable. The only way to turn off sticky keys is to press the shift key 5 times in quick succession resulting in further beeps. The 6th press will not produce a beep. Anyway, hope that makes sense. I don't believe this is a catch 22 but correct me if I'm wrong.  |
| Does the word dishumble exist? [closed] Posted: 15 Apr 2021 07:10 AM PDT I feel like the word should exist.  |
| Which pronoun (you vs. I) to use while answering word problems in mathematics? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 05:18 AM PDT Let us say there is a word problem like this:
I solve this problem and find the answer to be 3 apples. Which of the two options is the right way to write the answer to this word problem:
Should the pronoun in the answer be "you" or "I"?  |
| Simile and metaphor without any clause Posted: 15 Apr 2021 05:41 AM PDT As a normal simile, consider "A good book (tenor) is like a well (vehicle)". If "like" is dropped and identity is asserted, a metaphor will be obtained: "A good book is a well". Both of the above-mentioned examples are complete clauses. If one needs to express the simile or metaphor as a part of another clause, a coordinating or subordinating structure may be used: "The wisdom is like water which exists in good books which are wells." Are there any ways to express the similarity or identity without using any clause? One option is to use "-like" adjectives: "The water-like wisdom exists in the well-like books". But this sentence seems to me unpoetic, non-rhetorical (as opposed to the intended usage of the simile and metaphor), and rather ugly -- I know it does not matter, as I'm a non-native speaker. Moreover, I think it doesn't convey the same meaning as the original simile/metaphor, because it implies that some wisdoms are not like water. Are there other ways to do the same thing? For example, can the tenor be added as a noun adjunct to the vehicle (the book well) or in a possessive (the well of the book)?  |
| What's the correct form of this verb, "speculated"? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 04:47 AM PDT in this sentence, how do you analyse the correct form and meaning of the verb "speculated"?
I thought it was intransitive, but now I'm not sure...how does the "that" work in this sentence? Thank you very much.  |
| Does "retail" also mean something I don't understand? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 04:16 AM PDT
Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/retail#English The way I hear it recently is like:
Here, they seem to refer to "retail" as being "the common man", or individuals, rather than having anything to do with a "retail store" or "full price". Why do they call "non-institutions" retail?  |
| 'Nobodys first choice' or 'no ones first choice' which is correct? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 03:43 AM PDT Like the title suggests 'Nobodys first choice' or 'no ones first choice' which one is the correct form? here's the context it's being used in: "This hospital was no ones first choice"  |
| Posted: 15 Apr 2021 03:41 AM PDT "They believe that libraries are our culture". "It has been made clear that libraries are an archaic part of the past". Are these sentences grammatically correct?  |
| Posted: 15 Apr 2021 05:32 AM PDT
Why is the definite article used in the first sentence but not in the second and the third ones, since we talk about any cat, any phone and any donut, or, in other words, about the categories "cat"/"phone"/"donut"?  |
| Posted: 15 Apr 2021 04:43 AM PDT Like, for example, the book The Princess Bride, which claims to be an abridged version of a book which never existed by an author who isn't real, and contains a variety of fabrications about the content that was removed, legal troubles with the publishing, etc. Or the youtube series Petscop, which the narrator says is an investigation of an unfinished video game, but the game is fictional. Or some ARGs that create shell companies or fake websites for the players to "investigate". I feel like I remember there being a word specifically for this kind of thing, but after poking around on the internet a bit I can't seem to find it. My best guess would have been "hypertextuality", but according to Wikipedia this means something different.  |
| Can anyone explain the grammar rules used to form this sentence? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 05:06 AM PDT This sentence is from Larry McMurtry's 'Lonesome Dove'. This is about a signboard that is disliked by a character. I quote. "Anyway he soon came to dislike the sign so much that he would just as soon not have had his name on it at all" I want to understand the tense of the words in italics. I understand the meaning of the sentence.  |
| Idiom meaning inferring too much from the available evidence Posted: 15 Apr 2021 10:22 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"?  |
| Is there a word to describe something that is only capable of doing one thing? [duplicate] Posted: 15 Apr 2021 05:47 AM PDT Something like a one-trick pony. In a limitation type of context. Unique ability, but it is the only ability capable of being done, so it is unique to itself.  |
| Is there a word that could mean both serious and humorous? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 07:13 AM PDT I'm creating a project on character traits, and the person that I'm writing about is funny yet serious. I didn't know if there was a word for that, so I'm asking for help.  |
| Which sentence is correct? Which tense is better to use? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 04:47 AM PDT How to say grammatically correct that I had a problem, but then it's gone when I tried a recommendation:
or
 |
| Should “megafauna” take a plural verb or a singular one? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 03:10 AM PDT I know megafauna is not a very common word, while fauna is more so. Fauna is singular, defined as a group of animals. ex. "The African fauna is diverse". Megafauna is the word defining all animals with body mass larger than a certain threshold (45kg, 100kg, etc), so in theory is still a group. Following this logic, megafauna should be singular. However in many prominent scientific publications, for example some articles in Science and Nature, you find megafauna used in the plural form. ex. "Megafauna are a major draw for tourists" or "megafauna are imperiled". Checking online some dictionaries define it as plural and singular. Are these scientists grammatically "wrong" by using megafauna as a plural noun, or are they simply setting the standard for how a word should be used since language evolves and they are the most expert on the subject?  |
| "erupted in violence" vs. "erupted into violence" [closed] Posted: 15 Apr 2021 05:08 AM PDT I have come across both in major newspapers. Are both correct? What kind of phrase is this?
This is the example sentence. "This led to riots in 2005, when the country's impoverished banlieues(suburbs) erupted into violence." As mentioned in my comment I think it may have something to do with the word following in/into. (e.g) The crowd erupted in unison. Not into.  |
| Proper use of ‘case-in-point’ at the start of a statement Posted: 15 Apr 2021 06:53 AM PDT I'm writing an essay on globalisation and writing a point on how service jobs are harder to outsource, as compared to manufacturing jobs. At the end of my argument, is it grammatically correct to write Case in point: You can't serve your customer in XYZ mall from China. (I substitute XYZ mall with the name of an actual mall in the area of context) Is this usage correct? I'm trying to use case in point in a mildly sarcastic or humorous way. Thanks in advance.  |
| What is the word for "job-hopper" with a positive connotation? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 06:49 AM PDT How do you call people who change jobs frequently but in a good way? For example: Mary is a ______ who has acquired a wide range of skills from short stints of employment.  |
| Everybody had a different opinion. Is there an idiom for this? Posted: 15 Apr 2021 05:40 AM PDT I'm searching for an idiom (in a negative sense) that means that a group of people have different opinions, so it's difficult for them to solve a problem, to decide on something or agree on something. Example:
 |
| Word to describe both adding and removing but not updating Posted: 15 Apr 2021 08:52 AM PDT I am looking for a word that can describe the act of adding/removing objects but at the same time avoid a word that has to do with updating. So, given
I want a word for ((1 and 2) and not 3). So I guess words like alter won't do. Edit: I am actually making an application, and I have three methods; adding, removing and updating. But there is some logic in both the adding and removing that is common. I then decided to make a fourth (helper) method. That's why I need this word so badly.  |
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