Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange |
- What is a general word for a shape which allows entry/exit through only one of its faces?
- What is the reverse word for abbreviation? [duplicate]
- On a book title - Vocabulary About Animals or Animal?
- What is the difference between "suffer for" and "suffer from"?
- Is "Each person should do their own work" really not logical to say? [duplicate]
- Name for a new second team working on the same project without implying it is a secondary?
- Multi-layer prepositional phrase
- Word for "Something that happened in the past"
- Why do you say “to step down” in Englisch but the German equivalent translates to “to step back”? [closed]
- Rick Woolsey Detroit [closed]
- What is a metaphor for hating someone who has taken away their boy/girlfriend?
- In what conditions should the negative of a " that-clause" move to the main clause?
- What is the difference between "investigation / go through / checkout / looked into"? [closed]
- Why is ‘prejudice’ syllabified as Prej-u-dice?
- Royal versus Loyal [closed]
- Can “Tentacles” be used for branches?
- Can we say “the school will take the students to...?”
- Is there anything ungrammatical in the sentence "I recommend meditating when they[people] feel anxious."?
- Word for one too many items
- What are the proper punctuations required in the stylistic phrasing: "from [location] to [location]; from [else] to [where]"?
- What is "bringing a pinwheel to a prizefight"
- Is 'the course' a complement or an adjunct in 'Stay the course'?
- Is the "blue" in "blue moon" a reference to betrayal?
- Punctuation for multiple questions in one sentence
- When to Recycle, Recycles, Recyclables, Recycling
- "We must away ere break of day": What is this grammar? Is it alive?
- Agreement (after "each person") with 'has/have' in "each person 'has' their own ..." [duplicate]
- Does "I am thirsty to die" make sense?
- How to end a letter beginning with "To whom it may concern"
- Neither do I / Nor do I / Me neither / Me either
| What is a general word for a shape which allows entry/exit through only one of its faces? Posted: 06 May 2021 10:33 AM PDT What is a general word for a shape which has only one entry/exit side or face? For example, if it's a rectangle with 4 sides, then things can only pass in/out from one its side while other sides are blocked. The field of context is mathematics, computation, physics.  |
| What is the reverse word for abbreviation? [duplicate] Posted: 06 May 2021 08:46 AM PDT An abbreviation is a shorter form of a word (or a phrase). This need not be unique. Suppose that one abbreviation for Engineering is ENG. Hence, we would say that the abbreviation of Engineering is ENG. What would we call Engineering with respect to ENG? The "abbreviated word" does the job, but is there a more direct way of getting there? Say, the "unabbreviated"?  |
| On a book title - Vocabulary About Animals or Animal? Posted: 06 May 2021 08:27 AM PDT A usual grammatical practice will pick "animals" obviously but some said we can keep singular if we are writing a book title or a title of a chapter. Who's correct?  |
| What is the difference between "suffer for" and "suffer from"? Posted: 06 May 2021 09:37 AM PDT I have a question about "I've suffered for my sins." why is used "suffered for", not "suffered from"?  |
| Is "Each person should do their own work" really not logical to say? [duplicate] Posted: 06 May 2021 04:00 AM PDT I am taking English Language Studies as my bachelor's. It happened when one of our subjects' professor, Advanced English Grammar professor, said that the sentence "each person should do their own work" is not logical to say because of "their"'s usage -- or it is grammatically wrong based on prescriptive grammar's view. I think I kind of get it, but I am not satisfied nor convinced with her explanation. Can someone justify why or why not it is not logical? Thank you!  |
| Name for a new second team working on the same project without implying it is a secondary? Posted: 06 May 2021 01:36 AM PDT Similar to Word/phrase that means "secondary" without implying a lack of importance but with the particular application of naming a team. As a concrete example we have a team working on 'Widget' and they are the 'Widget Team', now we have a second team working on Widget. We could call them 'Widget Team B' or 'Widget Team 2' but these imply that they are secondary to the main team. Star Trek did it with 'Next Generation' but obviously this is a bit overblown (although I am open to ideas!) Is there a word/phrase or way to refer to them that implies that they are equivelent but different?  |
| Multi-layer prepositional phrase Posted: 06 May 2021 07:37 AM PDT I am having trouble picturing the structure of this preposition phrase
My attempt to run it down goes like this:
And I am stuck here, because I am uncertain if it should be
or
Namely, is the PP complement "of generative syntax" attached to the noun "view"? It feels weird if that's the case. Because that way it would mean "of view of generative syntax" constitutes a PP and "view of generative syntax" an NP, but that doesn't appear to be true. Also I think the NP "point of view" is headed by "point" instead of "view", so shouldn't the complement attach to the head noun "point" or the entire NP? BillJ's answer here specifies licensing as the criterion for complements. So in such a case where the core that is followed by an NP complement is an NP itself, which is the noun that does the licensing or permitting?  |
| Word for "Something that happened in the past" Posted: 06 May 2021 01:47 AM PDT I need help with a word describing something that happened in the past. The online translation for the German word "das Geschehene" in a sentence is: "what happened" (Bing, Google and DeepL). Is there a single English word for that? Maybe "past events"? But then again, it's 2 words!  |
| Posted: 06 May 2021 06:25 AM PDT Why do you say "to step down" (as in resign) in Englisch but in German you "zurücktreten" (i.e. "to step back")?  |
| Posted: 06 May 2021 01:00 AM PDT Rick Woolsey Detroit says grateful to this site because this site increases my english grammar and i also recommend this site to my friends  |
| What is a metaphor for hating someone who has taken away their boy/girlfriend? Posted: 06 May 2021 09:02 AM PDT Demetrius and Helena use to date each other but Demetrius fell in love with Hermia because of her beauty. I want a metaphor to describe Helena's jealousy of, anger at and hate for Hermia.  |
| In what conditions should the negative of a " that-clause" move to the main clause? Posted: 06 May 2021 12:36 AM PDT
In the " that-clause", why does the first example use the affirmative, yet the second one use the negative? I guess the verb "can" or "can't" is bound by the subject and the main verb in the main clause, but I'm not sure.  |
| What is the difference between "investigation / go through / checkout / looked into"? [closed] Posted: 06 May 2021 12:01 AM PDT I want to know what is the difference in meaning between investigation / go through / checkout / looked into? They all mean 'check'.  |
| Why is ‘prejudice’ syllabified as Prej-u-dice? Posted: 06 May 2021 05:31 AM PDT While reading a book, I noticed prejudice was hyphenated to the next line in the following form: prej-udice. As I found it quite strange, I searched online for its syllables and apparently it had its syllables as prej-u-dice, so the book was not wrong about the hyphenation. But still, my heart strongly suggested that pre-ju-dice would be a more intuitive way to syllable the word. Notice that the following words are partly similar but syllabled differently:
I wonder what makes prejudice so different from those words that it has j separated from u in the syllables? As suggested in the comments, I'm adding the reference to the hyphenation in question:
 |
| Posted: 06 May 2021 12:36 AM PDT One of the online English-learning sites in Japan where I study English, regularly uses the expression "Royal customers" instead of "Loyal customers" in their address. I felt it strange, so I advised them that maybe it was a typo which should be corrected. However, they answered that they intentionally use "Royal" saying that the word 'Loyal' might have a negative effect on their reputation. They felt that using 'loyal' made their customers think the company is not respectful enough, that the company didn't care about them, and that customers would think they were simply subordinates or slaves, forced to buy the company's services as if they have no choice, all due to the connotation of the word 'loyal'. By adopting the word 'royal,' instead of 'loyal,' I think they thought they were showing admiration and respect to their customers. I guess they also thought that 'Royal' was phonetically superior to 'Loyal' because it uses an 'R' instead of an "L". Hearing their explanation, I felt they were only trying to cover up their confusion in the use of these two words. After asking some native English speakers about this I concluded that the company's reason for using this form of address was more to protect their pride as an English-education business. None of the native English speakers I'd asked agreed with the company's reasoning. Some advised "valued customers" as a useful alternative and a perfect choice for the company to adopt, if they really wanted to express their respect and gratitude to their customers. I'd like to hear your opinions. Is there any thinkable reason to address customers as "royal" in the way the company asserted, or do you think the company's remarks are persuasive? Anyway, I'm dissatisfied with the company's strange reasoning and tactics and wonder why they made excuses for their form of address? Do you think they never considered using "valued customers," as an English education company? Would any of you address customers as "Royal customers," not "Loyal customers," if you were in the customer service department of your company? Thank you  |
| Can “Tentacles” be used for branches? Posted: 06 May 2021 03:59 AM PDT Reading through the following sentence
Oxford languages mean tentacle as:
Can tentacles be used as branches? Is it common?  |
| Can we say “the school will take the students to...?” Posted: 06 May 2021 06:38 AM PDT "The school will take the students to the zoo." Is it correct to say this or is it a bit weird? This is comprehensible, but a school cannot physically take someone from a place to another. Is it more appropriate to say "The teachers will take the students to the zoo"? Thanks.  |
| Posted: 06 May 2021 02:48 AM PDT I'd like to answer the following question. Question: What is your recommendation to overcome the feelings of anxiety? I have found following sentences a and b are authentic and grammatical.
I doubt, however, if my sentences are right for the following question.
I haven't found any case where the sentences 3–6 are used in real contexts. Are they ungrammatical or awkward in meaning? Can I replace meditating in sentences 3-4 with meditation or ""meditation"" in sentences 5-6 with ""meditating**? If so, is there no change in meaning when you use gerunds and nouns?  |
| Posted: 06 May 2021 09:24 AM PDT Perhaps this word doesn't exist. I'm looking for the word to describe the last final thing you want to put in a container but it won't fit. There is always one of those. You have ten items but always only nine will fit into the container you have. Often occurs with a toolbox which has one too many tools to go into it.  |
| Posted: 06 May 2021 09:03 AM PDT How do I properly punctuate this?
 |
| What is "bringing a pinwheel to a prizefight" Posted: 06 May 2021 01:39 AM PDT Whats the meaning of "bringing a pinwheel to a prizefight"
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/06/technology/joe-biden-internet-election.html  |
| Is 'the course' a complement or an adjunct in 'Stay the course'? Posted: 06 May 2021 07:05 AM PDT Stay the course is a fixed expression, but I'd like to know how to analyze the course. At first blush, it seems to be complement of the verb stay. But then, you have a similar-looking example stay the night, where the night seems to be an adjunct. So I'm torn between the two. Which do you think is correct, and why?  |
| Is the "blue" in "blue moon" a reference to betrayal? Posted: 06 May 2021 04:51 AM PDT There are some previous questions on this site about the etymology of the phrase "blue moon" (What is the origin of the phrase "blue moon"? Any alternate phrase for it?, Why do we call some full moons "blue" when they're not?). But none of these posts deals with a surprising hypothesis currently mentioned on the Wikipedia article "Blue Moon": that the word "blue" here is somehow connected to the Old English verb belǽwan meaning "to betray":
As far as I can tell, none of the references listed in the Wikipedia article seems to be a reliable source for etymological information, or to reference any more reliable source to back up this etymology. The first linked reference is an article "What is a Blue Moon" by the staff of Farmers' Almanac that simply says
(Note the vague wording here—"One explanation connects it with"—as in the Wikipedia article—"The suggestion has been made"). Neither the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), nor the Online Etymology Dictionary provide any support for the idea that the term "blue moon" has any connection to Old English belǽwan "to betray". To the contrary, the OED indicates that the "blue" in "blue moon" is derived from the familar color word, which is a loanword from French (although French in turn got the word from a Germanic language). The OED does indicate that the color word blue was spelled "belewe" in some Middle English manuscript or manuscripts. Does anyone know of any more scholarly etymological sources than the ones that Wikipedia references that discuss this hypothesis?  |
| Punctuation for multiple questions in one sentence Posted: 06 May 2021 10:13 AM PDT I have multiple questions that I want to put in one sentence. Is this punctuation correct?
or
Alternate would be:
 |
| When to Recycle, Recycles, Recyclables, Recycling Posted: 06 May 2021 03:49 AM PDT I always feel like I pick the wrong "recycle"-based word. When do I use what? Confusing examples:
Especially in contrast to "garbage" and the analogous forms of garbage in the above examples.  |
| "We must away ere break of day": What is this grammar? Is it alive? Posted: 06 May 2021 03:04 AM PDT This phrase appears in a song of the dwarves in Tolkien's The Hobbit:
Tolkien was an outstanding linguist, and I guess this line is one of the antique structures he often used in such poems. To my knowledge, the line means "We must go away before dawn", but omits the main verb completely. What is this structure exactly? Does it appear in contemporary English in any way?  |
| Agreement (after "each person") with 'has/have' in "each person 'has' their own ..." [duplicate] Posted: 06 May 2021 04:13 AM PDT In a blog in Harvard Business Review, David Franke writes:
Does the subject agree with the verb here?  |
| Does "I am thirsty to die" make sense? Posted: 06 May 2021 09:28 AM PDT "I am hungry to die" doesn't mean that I am dying because of hunger, rather, "I want to die a lot." How about "I am thirsty to die?" Does this mean "I am dying because of thirst?" I want to know the real meaning of this expression.  |
| How to end a letter beginning with "To whom it may concern" Posted: 06 May 2021 06:40 AM PDT How should one end - ie, sign-off - a letter that begins with "To whom it may concern"?  |
| Neither do I / Nor do I / Me neither / Me either Posted: 06 May 2021 08:59 AM PDT In this circumstance, which would be the most correct / natural answer?
This says both "neither do I" and "Me neither" are often used. But I have also heard / read "me either" and "nor do I" in multiple scenarios. Which then is the correct way of saying it? Are the others wrong or just not used?  |
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