Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Culinary, Edible, Herbs, Fruits and Vegetables?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 08:37 AM PDT

I'm building a web-app related to plants so I want to understand this a little bit more!

Basic Info regarding App:

A user can enter a keyword (e.g. "Lettuce", "Mint", "Orange").

The app would then search on Wikipedia to get more information and present it to users! What I want to do to limit the results from Wikipedia is to use tags/categories that would eliminate irrelevant articles.

Therefore my questions are:

  • Are all vegetables edible?
  • Are herbs considered as vegetables?
  • Are culinary goods edible?
  • Is there one universal word for edible plant-based diet (veggies, fruits, flowers, herbs, ...)?

Which is correct in using "consider as" of Cambridge and Oxford dictionary?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 09:57 AM PDT

I get a bit confused when counterchecking the dictionaries of Cambridge and Oxford against one another. In the Cambridge dictionary, it is written that "We don't use 'as' with 'consider'" and an incorrect example is given. Cambridge dictionary:

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On the other hand, I found that according to Oxford dictionary it can be used .

Oxford dictionary (second meaning):

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The links provided below are the places where I found this difference between the two dictionaries. Can anyone explain this to me, or tell me which is correct? Thanks so much for your help.

Oxford: "https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/consider?q=consider"

Cambridge: "https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/consider-or-regard"

"cooking oil" VS "cooking-oil"

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 09:17 AM PDT

I know that intended meaning depends on the conversation context, but still I'm curious about the usage of hyphen.

1-) Cooking oil : It theoretically may have two meanings; The first one is "oil that cooks", second one is "oil for the action of cooking".

So, If I do not want "cooking" to be an adjective and intend to mean the second one, can I use a hyphen between them like "cooking-oil" ?

I wish to know the meaning of my expression [closed]

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 05:40 AM PDT

We got the serious water shortage in 56 years

Is it correct?

Is there an idiom that implies that you reach me when I was planning to reach you?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 05:23 AM PDT

I was planning to send an email to someone when actually this person reached me first!

I wanted to say "oh I was planning to reach you when you actually reach me first" Like in my native language we have a phrase we use. Is there anything like this in English literature or idiom?

Is there a word for the feeling that everything is possible?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 05:19 AM PDT

I found a someone asking about the belief that everything is possible, but i need the name of the feeling and i can't find it.

What does the word "mortability" exactly mean?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 05:37 AM PDT

I've come across quite a few medical articles in which the word "mortability" appears. e.g. In the National Library of Medicine : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=mortability. As I strongly doubt that this word has ever existed, I've looked up a couple of dictionaries on line and at home, only to discover that none of them accepts such an entry and, as a consequence, I haven't been able to find any definition so far. Can anyone help?

"You're s**t" vs "You ain't s**t" [closed]

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 04:01 AM PDT

"You're shit" vs "You ain't shit" what do these two phrases mean? Are they interchangeable? if yes then when?

Word analogy - terrify is to frighten as [closed]

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 09:25 AM PDT

Terrify is to frighten as...

  1. demand is to request
  2. explore is to ignore
  3. brag is to scold
  4. predator is to prey
  5. chase is to capture

Please choose the closest option.

Relative clause 'that'

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 03:42 AM PDT

Is 'everything which I have' grammatically incorrect?

I have read 'everything which is forbidden is allowed' and 'I'm looking for something which will clean glass', etc. now the English grammar has changed. Please tell me if the sentence 'everything which I have' is correct or incorrect, and why!!

Searching for a negative idiom. Where a person sacrifices long term for small relief

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 07:48 AM PDT

What's a negative idiom for a situation where a person sacrifices long term benefit for small, short term relief.

Example:

I am cold so I cut off pieces of my jacket to start a fire.

Basically inconveniencing, sacrificing something large for a small moment or purpose without hindsight.

Please help me understand the meaning of these sentences

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 04:24 AM PDT

The documentary I am watching is about WW2 (wartime Dover, actually). And the narrator, who is aboard a helicopter, utters these sentences, putting himself in the shoes of a German airman:

We know the Luftwaffe bombarded this airfield time and time again. Hawkinge was a key part of our defenses.

Straight over the top. Bombs gone. Have we got 'em Mike?

(Mike is the helicopter pilot.)**

I don't understand the sentences in bold.

What does "tender of the tree" mean?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 06:40 AM PDT

I was watching a TV Show named "The 100" and in the episode 4, season 1, at 24:06 min the character Nygel said the following line.

I remember when you were the tender of the tree. You were a cute kid.

I would like to know what does tender mean in this context? Is this some idiom?

mischevous misnomer [closed]

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 09:06 AM PDT

What is the literary device used to describe what is happening here:

A The drug was produced by British firm AstraZeneca (when things were going well)

B The drug was produced by British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca (when things were a little tricky)

What literary device is this & what is it called?

is it "mischevous misnomer" or something else?

Using apostrophe + s and "the" - is it incorrect and why?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 09:13 AM PDT

I saw a colleague writing:

Can you add the new option in the Salesforce's panel?

English is my second language, but my intuition tells me that using the with 's in this situation is incorrect and you should use either:

Can you add the new option in Salesforce's panel?

...or:

Can you add the new option in the Salesforce panel?

Am I right and if yes, why am I right? What are the grammatical rules that apply here?

Is there an idiom for "looking for something in the wrong place"?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 05:39 AM PDT

I want to express how someone might have an unfulfilled social need and seek to satisfy it in the wrong place. For example: someone has a romantic social need yet seeks for it to be satisfied from a popular, professional Twitch streamer; or someone has a friendship social need yet seeks to satisfy it with their therapist, which is inappropriate/unprofessional.

Is there a common idiom that describes something like this? Or can you come up with one?

I came up with "looking for an orange in an apple orchard", but I'm not sure if it captures what I want to say.

(also, I read the responses to Phrase or idiom for funnelling efforts in wrong direction, What could be an idiom describing the action of looking for something in the wrong place?, and An idiom meaning someone's doing something useless and has no result at the end, but they don't have the nuance I'm looking for).

Thanks in advance!

How to pronounce "stupid", "YouTube" and words like this?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 03:39 AM PDT

In dictionaries like Cambridge or Oxford it pronounced like "stjupid". But I hear how some people pronounce it like "stchupid". Is it different dialect or what's the reason?

Why is "strategies to cutting" correct in this sentence?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 05:12 AM PDT

I'm reading 'When Breath Becomes Air' by the late Paul Kalanithi, and I came across the sentence: "I could see that there were two strategies to cutting the time short..." My question is why "to cutting" is used rather than "for cutting".

A word meaning choosing to see a person's activities but not necessarily agreeing with them (on social media)

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 04:10 AM PDT

The context of this question is social media. In light of the various unfortunate events that often seem to stem from internet echo chambers, I've been thinking of ways to mitigate the tendency of social media to create echo chambers.

Social media sites usually allow you to "subscribe" or "follow" someone whose activity you're interested in. However, both of these words have connotations that imply you agree with the opinions of this person. However, following a Twitter account is very different from following the teachings of Jesus. Subscribing to a YouTube channel does not mean you also subscribe to their school of thought. The use of these words on social media sites makes it unlikely for most people to "follow" or "subscribe" to anything they might disagree with, stimulating the creation of echo chambers.

In the interest of making the world a better place, I believe that we should promote thoughtful disagreement at least as much as we do mindless agreement. As a step towards that, something needs to replace the traditional concept of subscription on the internet. What word could be used to replace "follow" or "subscribe" on a social media site that doesn't have implications of agreement?

The options that are most viable to me right now are "listen," "observe," and "monitor." However, "observe" also has connotations of agreement, although maybe less so than the ones in place now. "Monitor," on the other hand, has an almost negative or overly cautious tone. "Listen" seems like it's in a good place, but for the sake of thoroughness, I'm submitting this word request here. The word should be a good fit for a social media site, and a verb will probably work the best, but it's not impossible for it to be a noun or other part of speech. For example, instead of "following" a user, you could add the user to a list of "<insert noun here>s"

Singular and Plural form

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 08:03 AM PDT

What is the difference between (i) "varieties of choice" and (ii) "variety of choices" ? Does the location of singular or plural in a sentence affect the entire meaning of a sentence ?

Quotation Marks Around Nicknames?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 10:46 AM PDT

I would understand if the nickname was around quotation marks if the full name was presented as well:

"His name is O'Shea 'Ice Cube' Jackson Sr."

But what if you referred to a person only by their nickname?

With quotation marks:

"Hey, 'Ice Cube,' how's it going?"

Without quotation marks:

"Hey, Ice Cube, how's it going?"

Would the quotation marks be necessary?

Saying for "don't talk about things you don't understand"

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 08:54 AM PDT

Is there a (relatively) common phrase, preferably using a metaphor, which means one should not talk about things one does not really understand? I have the impression of some such phrase floating around in my memory, but all that I can think of is Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, which is not the phrase I am looking for.

Is this grammatically correct? "I do not have as much optimism as I'd like to have." [closed]

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 06:25 AM PDT

Is it grammatically correct to say "I do not have as much optimism as I'd like to have."? - A statement issued by Speaker Joehner and reported by the Hill on 7/18/2014.

Does "eff" mean to describe in words?

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 09:03 AM PDT

If one dissects the word "ineffable", there are three main roots

  • in - not
  • able - able to be done
  • eff

The meaning of the root able implies that some part of the word before it must refer to an action. Given that in is solely and adverb in this case, that would, by default, make eff a verb. Knowing that eff is a verb with a meaning antonymic to the word as a whole, I assume that it means something to the effect of "to describe in words"

However, I have not yet found a dictionary that acknowledges this. They have acknowledged "effable",but not "eff". Is it simply a quirk of our language that the word is never used, or has my logic failed me somewhere?

Difference in usage of terms "company" and "firm"

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 08:12 AM PDT

In a meaning of officially registered and bounded business unit. Like "Microsoft" or "Apple" or "ZARA" or copy shop round the corner.
In some books on management/entrepreneurship authors use both words interchangeably without understandable logic. Somewhere I heard that "company" is mostly about a smaller business than "firm".
I tried to ask people around me (they are actually not native English-speakers, but more close to them than me - Netherlands) but their proposals sometimes were almost opposing.

In some cases ex. "law firm" it's more like a set phrase, but what could be a general approach?

encapsulating a positive thing among many negative things

Posted: 28 Apr 2021 06:12 AM PDT

Is there a phrase that encapsulates 'this is a positive thing among many negative things'?

Context: I need to find a name for an article I am writing - which is about how a person turned everything negative into something beautiful.

Can anyone help?
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