Thursday, April 29, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Subject-verb agreement (communications and processing occur or occurs?)

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 09:43 AM PDT

I'm having an issue with subjects agreeing with a verb in a sentence. "Communications" sounds like a plural noun, while "processing" is singular, and the verb, "occur," doesn't seem to agree with "processing."

Which of the following is the most correct?

  1. All communications and processing in the software occur through TLS security.
  1. All communication and processing in the software occur through TLS security.

Or should I rearrange the sentence so it reads better, like so:

  1. All processing and communications in the software occur through TLS security.

Thank you!

word analogy - accelerate is to velocity as

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 09:26 AM PDT

Accelerate is to Velocity as

  1. sound is to decibels
  2. incarcerate is to prison
  3. levitate is to elevation
  4. commiserate is to weight
  5. denigrate is to reputation

Please choose one option.

Name for a conversation where two people are talking about two things, without their knowledge

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 09:05 AM PDT

The show Arrested Development uses a writing technique I haven't seen very often, but I find very interesting. The idea is that two people will have a conversation where they are both talking from two completely different contexts, the conversation works in either context, and they both end without ever realizing they didn't understand each other.

Example: in this clip George Michael is shy about the fact that he has a crush on his teacher. His aunt thinks he doesn't want to admit that he sees his teacher as a mother-figure and confidant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6Ap3xNLg4w

Thin strip of cloth that holds belt to pants

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 09:54 AM PDT

Pants usually have 5-7 narrow (~1cm) short (~5cm) vertical strips of cloth that that hold the belt to the pants:

enter image description here

What is a single word/short expression for those strips?

I found belt loop, but when I google it, the search seems to indicate that belt loop refers to a loop around the belt that attaches things to belt, not belt to pants.

Is there a more specific term than belt loop?

Is take care proper for this picture?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 07:44 AM PDT

I want to know the difference between look out, take care, and watch out.

enter image description here

Question about how to use the word suicide

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 07:28 AM PDT

I got this note from a literary agent and am curious about usage of the word suicide. I had written, "my father was a suicide." Which sounds a little archaic but wanted to avoid saying "committed suicide" and/or "Killed himself."

She wrote: Suicide should not be used in place of personhood – you don't say "was a car accident" or "was an aneurysm"

What do you think?

what does the sentence "all is not the moon surrounded by stars" mean?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 07:21 AM PDT

I saw this sentence when watching Leonardo (2021). It sounds archaic and I'm confused. I've seen sentences like "all that glistens is not gold" and "all is not lost", but this one is nothing like those right?

Is the word 'places' an 'adverb of place'?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 05:18 AM PDT

Please may I ask if the word 'places' is considered an 'adverb of place'? Here is a sentence example:

The dog takes his bone places.

I have a student who has asked this question. As far as I know, the noun 'place' is not considered part of the 'adverbs of place' list. I have searched far and wide to make sure I am correct, but cannot find a definitive answer.

What does "sweet bird" mean?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 04:19 AM PDT

I've come across the phrase "sweet bird". It's been translated into my native language as a "sweet-voiced bird". I wonder if the translation is right? Is a "sweet bird" a common phrase to describe a bird with a pleasant voice?

how to describe an explosion of a house? [closed]

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 03:02 AM PDT

How would you describe a house that had exploded/blown up by a bomb in creative writing?

What's the usage of words "sit" as in "I sit reading" and "lie" as in "as I lie dying"?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 02:59 AM PDT

These examples just mean there are two actions happening at the same time right? I'm pretty sure there are more words with the same usage and I wonder if this is a formal usage of these words.

"A" or "the" merger of two companies

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 04:56 AM PDT

In January, he was convicted of bribing South Korea's former president Park Geun-hye to obtain government support for a merger of two Samsung subsidiaries in 2015. The merger was meant to tighten his control over Samsung.

I am curious and wonder about the way a definite or indefinite article is used in cases such as "a merger of two Samsung subsidiaries" in the first sentence above, from a New York Times article. I am very much interested in the logic behind the use of the or a.

Numerous pairs of two could be randomly picked from group firms, but when combining a pair of two subsidiaries--let's call them X and Y--this merger is one unique combination involving X and Y; indeed any randomly selected two could together be considered a unique pair; therefore "the merger of two subsidiaries," X and Y, is more logically natural to me than "a merger."

Could you please point out any fallacy in my logic or explain the reasoning behind the use of the indefinite article a before merger in the quoted sentence?

I guess that this case is similar to "father of two" in terms of whether the or a is used in front of the noun, an article usage question I still could not wrap my head around.

how to describe online game player plus youtube watcher in single word

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 05:07 AM PDT

how to describe

the person who is spending lot of time on online games and youtube channel and not spending time on studies and home work?

Just games addict might not be very suitable. Any single word for both online games and youtube addicts?

What would you name this marketing tactics (scam) where an Business institution themselves post question and then self promote?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 04:14 AM PDT

What would you name this marketing tactics (scam) where an Business institution themselves (or any institute for that matter) posts a question like the below one on a forum

Can anyone tell me about Brillianz Academy? how genuine is the institute?

And then their employees responds to it positively to attract random forum users to their institute.

I am looking for word or phrase such as clickbait that describes how online links are used to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link and browse. A existing or made-up word of phrase that bring the image of the scam.

In clickbait, the idea is to attract user to click and then bait them into possible business deal. In the above question the idea "posing as users-posting innocent question and self promotion baiting".

I have a feeling there would be a word/phrase for this idea in other fields already that might be apt.

What's this window position called?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 04:32 AM PDT

If there is even the English name for this, please tell me. enter image description here

Subjunctive in English. Is it used for politeness?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 07:41 AM PDT

The usual explanation I get for expressions such as "How much did you want to spend, sir?" is that the use of the past tense produces a distance between the present reality and the question, thus making things more polite.

The thing is I've found this other example "I wondered if you were free this evening".

It makes me wonder if the origin of the past tense for politeness is an archaic subjunctive use, such as in sentences as "I wish he were here". In the end, it is not far from what the subjunctive is meant to do. It gives an idea of distance rather than the straight-forwardness of the indicative.

I believe English might do that in some invisible instances as this example. The subjunctive mood is sort of there, even if it is by playing with indicative tenses. The same distancing happens when using modal verbs in certain ways too. "That will be £1.65, please.", for instance.

Of course, apart from curiosity, this is a totally useless notion to a native speaker (thus it is not explained in their grammars). But for pretty much any European, or basically anyone with a first language that uses the subjunctive explicitly, having a look at this might be rather useful when trying to grasp the meaning of many English structures. Both modals and apparently random changes of tenses can be hard to understand otherwise.

What do you think? Speaking a language that uses the subjunctive explicitly, Spanish, I would find it very interesting if I get proof for my guess.

It would also make way more interesting expressions as "I was wondering..." with a double distancing meaning.

Note on conditionals vs subjunctives, replying to Benjamin Harmann's answer:

Conditionals are in fact related to subjunctives. Let's look at Spanish, so we have a common point of reference. We've got a conjugation for "indicative conditional" and another one (2 actually) for imperfect subjunctive, also called "subjunctive conditional". They mean the same, although the subjunctive one is slightly more hypothetical and indirect (therefore more polite or educated).

In "If I were/was you" the conditional is marked by if, so we all agree "were" gives a subjunctive mood (even most English grammarians). "If I was you" would be a syllogistic argument that means that I equalled you in the past, quite literally. In Spanish we would do that with "fui" or "era", then we could imply conditional in the verb by using "sería" and subjunctive "fuese" or "fuera". The thing is that the use of the conditional verb in Spanish wouldn't sound right in this case; so the verb would be essentially subjunctive keeping its conditional meaning.

Conditionals can also be expressed without if (or equivalents) thanks to the conjugational nature of the language. This is more easily seen when we use modal verbs. For "I'd like to see you tomorrow" You could say "Querría (conditional) verte mañana" or "Quisiera (subjunctive) verte mañana". Querría here is purely conditional (although as there is no if...then sort of structure, the meaning is essentially the same as the subjunctive, the latter having the aforementioned more polite nuance in meaning). I think English does this sort of thing all the time.

Another relation between conditionals and subjunctives is that they both relate to politeness intrinsically. I don't think this happens in all languages, but there is definitely a purely logical, and universal, nature to it. So, even when English uses the conditional for politeness, by comparison, you can see how this can be sort of the same as the use of the subjunctive. The mood and meaning are basically identical.

In the end, English evolved from the use of the subjunctive, as all related languages. But its ghost, in meaning and use, might be very alive indeed. It feels like many English structures are the remains of a more logically organized, older grammar. In order to understand the logic behind English as a foreign learner, comparisons with other similar languages might be helpful.

And as I think this might have to do with the use of tenses and modals, I'd like to add:

"Contrariwise "continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." LEWIS CARROLL. Through the Looking Glass

Interesting previous comments:

  1. In Italian, which has a subjunctive mood like Spanish, there are still common expressions like "Mi chiedevo se..." or "Mi stavo chiedendo se..." (I was wondering if...) where the subjunctive is not used, but instead imperfect past tenses are used in the indicative mood.

  2. English has a subjunctive by the way. "We require that he use subjunctive." Not uses.

  3. The comment on Italian doing exactly that is quite interesting, though. In Spanish, I only know of the exact opposite. The subjunctive is used as past by journalists sometimes. "La que fuera ministra de Sanidad." Instead of "La que fue/había sido ministra de Sanidad"

Thank you.

In the sentence, "I want an air-freshener because I can't stand bad smells", why is the because-clause a subordinate clause? [duplicate]

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 05:44 AM PDT

I want an air-freshener because I can't stand bad smells.

Here, isn't 'I can't stand bad smells' a coordinate clause? It is complete in itself, right? It's only after adding 'because' that the sentence becomes subordinate. But 'because' is a conjunction. So, if we want to check if a clause is coordinate or subordinate, shouldn't we exclude the conjunction ('because') here?

Edit: Thanks to the people who have answered this question! Below, I am writing what I have inferred/concluded from all the answers. I request everyone, to inform if what I understood is correct or not.

  • subordinate clauses are necessary in the sentence to convey its full meaning, and that coordinate clauses are of greater value/importance than subordinate ones.

  • Coordinate and subordinate clauses can exist without the help of each other, and will make complete sense, but in order to convey the whole meaning of the original sentence, it is important to use them both.

  • Let's say in this sentence, both are making complete sense on its
    own, but coordinate clauses are more important. "I want a freshener" is more important than telling its reason. "I can't stand bad
    smells", which is the subordinate clause in this sentence, can stand alone, but it is of lesser importance in the original sentence.

What is the name of such type of diagrams?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 05:18 AM PDT

I want to know what is the name of such type of diagrams? Searching for text syntax diagrams yields only railroad diagrams, but that is different type, not what I look for.

enter image description here

Who or whom again but I think slightly different

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 07:52 AM PDT

'Voters Will Know Who to Blame': I saw this headline in www.commondreams.com today. I think it should be whom. Is whom now obsolete?

What does the word "literal" or "actual" mean as in a literal or actual something?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 04:17 AM PDT

I mean like when someone uses a certain word with more than one meaning, they often say it's a "literal" something. For example: (something I made up)

"John's corporate seal logo for his company has a literal seal on it"

"The sign-in seal for his Yahoo account is a picture of an actual seal"

What is a "literal" seal exactly? What is the usage of the word "literal"? Literal and actual are supposed to mean exactly, so what does it mean in this context?

Origin and usage of "day of"

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 07:09 AM PDT

There is an expression I have heard used many times in conversational U.S. English but cannot recall ever seeing in writing: day of as an adverb, omitting the object of the preposition.

Examples:

"Should we pick a restaurant now?"
"Nah, we can decide day of." [Or: "... the day of."].

"The day of, the weather turned out to be terrible."

The implied meaning is "adv. on the aforementioned day (of some event)".

I've checked several dictionaries and haven't found anything. Google searches have been fruitless because "day of" is almost always the beginning of a longer noun phrase.

Is there any documentation of the phrase's usage and origin?

What does it mean when Anne Frank was described as "a symbol for the lost promise of the children who died in the Holocaust"?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 07:56 AM PDT

I'm doing an English lesson on the Holocaust, and on one of the questions, I had to answer what the phrase meant. I've tried looking up what "lost promise" means, but none of the answers I've found fit the context, and I'm not sure how to answer. The only answer I can find is when one of two parties breaks a promise, the other party has lost the promise, therefore it is a lost promise. I can't think of any other meanings, much less for "...a symbol for the lost promise of the children..." I know someone else was asking what "lost promise" meant in the context of Nickelback lyrics, which is where I found the above meaning, but if anyone can find anything different I'd be grateful. :)

Crosswalk (cross-walk) as a verb

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 05:35 AM PDT

I have seen the word crosswalk (cross-walk) used as a transitive verb in the sense of align, compare, connect, link, relate, etc. ("Crosswalk your labor categories to the tasks in the statement of work.") ("We will crosswalk your estimated costs to each of the contract tasks.") I cannot find this usage in any dictionary, but I have seen it in some legal decisions and government documents, and I have seen some scholarly articles that mention or describe various kinds of "crosswalk analysis."

When did this usage begin? In what field or profession?

Omitting repeated definite article

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 09:46 AM PDT

Is it grammatically correct to omit the second "the" in the sentence

The viscosity and the density of water characterize its speed.

and write instead

The viscosity and density of water characterize its speed?

What do you call the person whom you ship your product to?

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 04:50 AM PDT

This person receives your product but they MAY or MAY NOT be your customer (maybe someone who can deliver it to your customer like their relative or friends but not some delivery company). Also, their details are added to under 'Shipping Details' by the customer maybe because your customer doesn't have a permanent address yet.

What do you call this person? Some names I thought of were 'receiver' or 'referee' or 'trustee' but I don't think they're accurate enough in business terms.

The <noun> of <noun> [closed]

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 07:45 AM PDT

I wonder about the the <noun> of <noun> template. For example, the customers of a movie theater or the possessor of a car. The question is "Is it a stable rule in English to put "the" before the first noun in this template?" Are there other instances of using this template, but without "the". I often use the structure "It is the <noun> of <noun>." For example, "It is the case of a cruel corruption." I have the same questions for this template.

Interjection "et voilà"

Posted: 29 Apr 2021 07:06 AM PDT

I know et voilà is a French interjection and means there it is.

It is very much used in the US. Why is the use of et voilà so popular in the US?

Which historical fact has made it so popular?

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