Friday, April 2, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Is personal pronoun followed with "verb+ing" grammatically correct?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 10:17 AM PDT

Is the sentence below correct? What type of pronoun is "You" in this case?

You staring won't make me walk faster

Questioned vs asked

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 10:51 AM PDT

The examiner questioned who the first man to fly in space was.

or

The examiner asked who the first man to fly in space was.

Are both correct? Does using one instead of another affect its meaning in any way?

Use as or since in the meaning 'because'

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 10:13 AM PDT

Hello I have a question related to the usage of "as" and "since" in the meaning "because". I have such a sentence:

"While some people sell stories to the tabloid press about how their lives have changed, many others are sadly disappointed with the results, as it may even have left them looking considerably worse than they did before"

Am I right the "as" in this sentence means "before". Is it possible to use there "since" eg: since it may ... or maybe we can only say "at is may even"? Can someone explain why?

Should there be a comma before "which" in this sentence?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 10:15 AM PDT

I have this sentence (shown below), and I am unsure whether there needs to be a comma before "which".

This is the sentence:

It consists of a single table called Table A, followed by four tables which are the following: Table B, Table C and Table D.

Any assistance on this would be appreciated, as it is bugging me.

What do you call someone who hurts or kills others to feel valued or important?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 09:53 AM PDT

Like someone who will injure or murder another person just to prove that they are important.

Confused about why some formations with "neither/either" are incorrect

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 08:51 AM PDT

Canada does not require that U.S. citizens obtain passports to enter the country, and Mexico doesn't either.

My question is why would these be incorrect if we use them after "and" as it is:

  1. Mexico does neither.
  2. Neither Mexico does.

Word for culture that develops around a specific skill or task that one does

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 08:50 AM PDT

Is there a word for ideas and rituals that have developed around a skill or a task that one does?

For example, consider coffee-making or metalworking. Many people do these things as hobbies and there is a "culture" that has developed around them, where people exchange ideas of doing these things in a better or different way. For coffee-making, there is "coffee culture" and metalworking is just "metalworking".

What I am looking for is another word that could be used in the same sense as 'culture' in "coffee culture".

Where did the use of the conjunction "So,..." at the beginning of a reply come from? [duplicate]

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 03:21 AM PDT

I am hearing more incidences of people being asked a direct question responding with a reply beginning with

So, ...

For example,

Questioner: "What do you think we should buy Janice for her birthday present?"

Respondent: "So, I thought that a voucher towards the cost of a meal for 2 at an expensive restaurant would be good, but with the Covid lockdown, I don't know when she would get any use out of it."

When, where and how did this enter into the English Language?

Difference between "live life" and "live a life"

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 05:06 AM PDT

Is there any difference between "live life" and "live a life" in daily conversations?

I was not directly involved vs I had not directly involved vs I did not directly involve?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 02:46 AM PDT

Could you please help me to understand the context of these three phrases and where they can be used?

  1. I was not directly involved with ...
  2. I had not directly involved with ...
  3. I did not directly involve with ...

I get #2 & #3 in tenses timeline. However, I get confused when reading #1. Is it Passive? The crazy thing is I am using #1 frequently in speaking, when I am writing something I get confused myself about what I am writing?

Word for a person who is a good example for learning pronunciation

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 07:20 AM PDT

I've finally found a native speaker whose pronunciation I want to emulate or imitate to sound better when speaking English. What do I call this person? The phrases I have found so far sound really absurd: example for imitation, exemplar, a role model.

I feel these are insulting or at least not correct.

I need a word which describes that a person is a good example or model for learning correct pronunciation.

What is a word that means 'not small'? [closed]

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 09:53 AM PDT

I'd like a word that captures medium and large. Everything bigger than small.

I want to use it to describe categories, where we have a small category, and then a category for all the others.

It will be used in labeling in computer code, and has to work in examples: "isMobile", "isTablet", "isSmallComputer", "isXxComputer"

I've tried searching for antonyms of small, but all responses are synonyms of big.

A word for a sale that is not an installment but actually paid in full

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 10:16 AM PDT

When you are buying something in a store you have the option to pay it in credit or debit, with or without instalments. Is there are a single word for something that is paid in full at the time of purchase?

Comma Galore. How do I punctuate “however” in this sentence?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 08:31 AM PDT

The importance of this piece, however, is probably better demonstrated in how much it has assisted me to be a photographer.

Maybe it should be like this?

The importance of this piece, however is probably better demonstrated in how much it has assisted me to be a photographer.

Single word for "led my team to victory"

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 10:09 AM PDT

I need to submit my achievements for purpose of an interview. But the questionnaire format is such that I need to use as few words as possible.

I want to convey "led my team to victory in ABC XYZ competition".

Is there a way to write this as "<word> in ABC XYZ competition"?

Edit:

  1. yes, a shorter punchier phrase would work
  2. ABC XYZ is a fitness competition within the company i was working, where we had to log our daily activities, worth double when we did in group. We were organised into teams of 8 each. My role was to nudge people into doing more, and encouraging them to work out in groups.

Why did some English verbs lose nasal endings?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 09:17 AM PDT

I saw this ending in many words of Old English origin where a word has -an in Old English but then lost in Modern English.

Examples: habban, climban, sceþþan, singan, offrian etc.

I noticed another thing: Old English words that end in -an end in -en in Middle English:

Old English Middle English Modern English
climban climben climb
singan singen sing
habban haven have
āscian asken ask

I can't think of other words but there are so many that behave the same.

What's up with the loss of -an/-en? And why the change from -an to -en? Can anyone please explain this?

EDIT:

While searching for an answer, I found this website (Uni.Due.De).

It has some information but I don't understand it at all.

The effects of the above changes on the morphology of Middle English were very considerable. They led to a loss of distinctiveness among grammatical endings so that the various declensional classes of Old English collapsed, with the dative plural remaining for a while the only case — with a final nasal /-n/ — which was distinctive, but even that was reduced in the course of the Middle English period. A direct consequence of this was that the more common declensions were generalised and used productively. The two main ones are the s-type and the nasal type as seen in the Old English words stān 'stone' : stānas 'stones' and ēage 'eye' : ēagan 'eyes' respectively. For a while the nasal declension was productive as is seen in its addition to the old r-plural child : childer > child(e)ren to give the doubly marked plural which has survived to the present day

Can the gerund clause take a personal pronoun as its subject in “It’s no use (his?) crying over lost love”?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 09:02 AM PDT

From a gram­mar book, I've have learned that a gerund clause can be op­tion­ally pre­ceded by a per­sonal pro­noun to show the log­i­cal sub­ject of the verb; that is, who­ever is do­ing the gerund's ac­tion.
I've also learned that a pos­ses­sive per­sonal pro­noun is usu­ally more ac­cept­able here than a pro­noun in an­other gram­mat­i­cal case like those used for sub­jects or ob­jects of fi­nite clauses.

With gerund clauses, there'a a cer­tain struc­ture that runs like this:

  1. It's no use do­ing some­thing.

in which do­ing some­thing is the gerund clause and do­ing the gerund head­ing that clause.

My question is: Can we also add a pos­ses­sive pro­noun be­fore do­ing in that par­tic­u­lar struc­ture? So for ex­am­ple like this:

  1. It's no use his cry­ing over lost love.

Does it sound com­pletely nor­mal to use the pro­noun his there to say who's do­ing that ac­tion?

If not, is there some other way of say­ing it that would be more com­mon and nat­u­ral-sound­ing to na­tive speak­ers?

Reading books and checking websites has/have helped them

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 08:05 AM PDT

Which is more correct to say?

Reading books and checking websites has helped them.

Reading books and checking websites have helped them.

Is there a word for when you use a descriptor in place for a word/phrase you've forgotten?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 06:25 AM PDT

Best example I can give is a post I saw a while back where someone was trying to remember the name for a manta ray and described it as a sea pancake instead. Logically you could call it a sea pancake and most native speakers will get the gist of what you mean, but the actual name is still manta ray. Is there a word for that sort of phrasing in writing when you use nonstandard language but it still gets the point across or works as a valid name/descriptor?

Are there variants of "hold my beer" in different English dialects?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 07:13 AM PDT

The phrase "Hold my beer/drink (and watch this)" is a rather perjorative bit of slang - it implies that the speaker can perform the same act (or stunt) that he just observed someone else perform, implying that the act itself was trivially easy.

Since it seems to be a decidedly American saying, are there similar expressions within British, Australian, Canadian, African, or Indian English usage?

I'm just curious here.

What is a term for a person who defends another person or their actions no matter what? [closed]

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 06:33 AM PDT

Some examples:

  • Someone defending their friend even if they know what the friend did was wrong.
  • Defense lawyers who know their client is guilty but fight to prove otherwise
  • Someone who sacrifices themselves to protect one or more others even at the cost of their lives

The 3rd example as a verb is basically the definition of heroic sacrifice, but what is the agent called? Is it simply a hero? While that definitely applies to those who die saving others, I don't feel like that term can be applied nearly as generously to the other examples. Is there perhaps a form of altruism that describes this?

Next week, in the next week, for the next week

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 07:14 AM PDT

I have an easy question about the usage of the expression: next week / month/ year.

What is the difference between these three sentences?

  1. I'll probably go the mountains next week.

  2. I'll be on holiday for the next week.

  3. I'm sure there will be a lot of work to do in the next week.

I've found on the internet that the first sentence means "in a specific moment of the next week", but I can't understand the difference between the second and third sentence. What is the difference between for the next and in the next?

I've already tried looking for similar threads but none of them has answered my question. I hope you can help me!

For whom the bell tolls - origin of "ask not" instead of "never send to know"

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 08:21 AM PDT

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls" is a popular cliche. My understanding is that it comes from John Donne's Meditation XVII (1623). But in Donne's poem, the line is

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

So where did "ask not" come from? Is it a common mistake (or deliberate modernization) or is there another source for this quote?

Ask not for whom the dog barks doormat

"something come something", or foo-come-bar

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 07:33 AM PDT

Is the bold construct below valid? Does it have a name? What sort of punctuation would you use for it?

Fnord, the something-come-such-and-so, was under development for a year or so. It suffered a redesign late last year to satisfy changing customer demands. We had a something on hand; customers wanted such-and-so.

I swear I've heard or read this construction before. It falls on my ear as old fashioned (dare I say "vintage"?), though not quite archaic.

Comma before “or” when it introduces synonym or explanation

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 09:32 AM PDT

This Grammar Tip of the Day:

The rule: Place a comma before "or" when what follows it means the same as what precedes it.

confirms what I understand about using a comma before the word or — when it explains the preceding word further or gives its synonym.

However, Oxford Dictionaries' definition 2 uses a comma before or in the first example:

yoga is a series of postures, or asanas

But it doesn't use a comma in the next couple examples:

  1. Joshua was born weighing just 18 ounces – half a kilo or just over a pound.
  2. By early Tuesday he was dead – a victim of the most deadly of the world's culinary delicacies, the blowfish or fugu.

Am I missing something?

We say entrepreneur and entrepreneurship, what is the verb?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 07:16 AM PDT

For the word entrepreneur and entrepreneurship, I would like to know the corresponding verb, i.e the action of doing entrepreneurship, i.e the verb that should fit in the next sentence :

To be a good entrepreneur you should ________ this and that project.

What would be the verb that shares the same root ? entrep... ??

When and how did "fail" become a noun?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 03:41 AM PDT

Does anyone know when and how fail became a noun? I'd love to see one of those charts that shows the date of origin and subsequent growth of this usage.

When did the word "so" begin to be used to start a sentence?

Posted: 02 Apr 2021 06:26 AM PDT

In the last few years, I've noticed a growing usage of the word "so" to begin a sentence, especially in the context of higher education.

For example:

Interviewer: "What is the nature of your research"

Researcher: "So, what we wanted to find out is..."

It seems to be a replacement the word "well", or, more informally, "ok". Has this usage of the word been around for a long time and I'm just now noticing it? Do you think that is a valid use of the word?
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