Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange |
- Personal pronouns interacting with word order
- Why " him" not "himself"
- Unusual model of cluase
- What do we call the person who gives a beggar money? [duplicate]
- Iambic Tetrameter - does it pertain to poems? Or to lines?
- Inquiring about a book recommendation [closed]
- rolling into higher principal balance
- Writing "There" and "there is" in the same sentence
- The Grim Reaper, death itself/herself/himself?
- Meaning of value measure
- How to improve my English? [closed]
- Reference Request on Preposition Fronting
- What is the word to describe pseudo-elite people who despite being wealthy have low standards of behavior? [duplicate]
- What do "industry's exposure" mean and meaning in context?
- “Statues carved in a row”
- Why is ‘prejudice’ syllabified as Prej-u-dice?
- Comma After Pronoun
- Synonym for meanwhile
- idiom or a smooth way to say that the game is the right level/scope for a person?
- How to syllabify "very" or "merry" etc in British English?
- The correct usage of the word "saying" in the relative clauses
- usage of more common/more frequently/more often
- Is there a language technique that categories inverse meanings?
- The meaning of causative 'have'
- Why did Jitney become slang for nickel?
- Word for non-humanoid characters with artificial intelligence?
- Word to describe person who is rich in wealth, but is poor in class?
- What do you call someone or a group of people who split off from a main group?
| Personal pronouns interacting with word order Posted: 09 May 2021 09:57 AM PDT Many will be familiar already with the technical details of when to use 'I' and 'me' in a sentence. I hit him, he hit me, etc. What I'm confused about is cases such as "me and John went to the shops". Or "who went to the shops earlier? Me and John did." It's often desirable to list one's self first, either to be emphatic about one's own role in what is being said, or to give one time to think about who else was involved. These appears to be cases where one cannot change the word "me" to "I" without also changing the word order. For example, you can't say "I and John went to the shops", it has to be "John and I went to the shops". Is this a formally-recognised case in which "me" can be used in place of "I" (that is, when listing a series of names where the speaker is mentioned first in the list), or does it amount to formally "incorrect" usage despite being almost universal in speech?  |
| Posted: 09 May 2021 09:54 AM PDT
I saw this sentence in the OED; the definition indicates that " He" and " him" refer to the same person. Under the circumstances, "himself" is commonly seen rather than " him". I viewed previous posts relating to this topic, but they didn't tell the same thing. Why" him" not " himself" appears in the above sentence? Can "him" be substituted by " himself"?  |
| Posted: 09 May 2021 09:04 AM PDT How this sentence "The weather being very bad, we did not start the journey" is reduced? I can not understand what structure is applied for the clause "the weather being very bad"/  |
| What do we call the person who gives a beggar money? [duplicate] Posted: 09 May 2021 09:09 AM PDT A beggar is a person who beg for getting money or something from a person but what do we call that person who gives the beggar the money ? Like Hop-ons are people who jump onto the back of the stair car for a free ride.  |
| Iambic Tetrameter - does it pertain to poems? Or to lines? Posted: 09 May 2021 07:37 AM PDT I'm reading a poem in which the odd lines use iambic tetrameter but the even lines have only seven syllables. Each verse has four lines of 8,7,8,7. Something like this: My question is in two parts.
Thanks!  |
| Inquiring about a book recommendation [closed] Posted: 09 May 2021 07:06 AM PDT I am looking for an English language textbook specifically about learning different types of writing (informative, argumentative, discursive), with annotated examples from published articles. Is there a user-friendly guidebook/textbook? For an example, I like this kind of analysis of texts and essays for coherence and cohesion:  |
| rolling into higher principal balance Posted: 09 May 2021 05:45 AM PDT
Does it mean the same as "roll over"?  |
| Writing "There" and "there is" in the same sentence Posted: 09 May 2021 05:54 AM PDT In a thriller/horror screenplay, I have written this sentence: "There, at the bottom of the list, there is an app branded as "new" " They told me that repeating there in this way is wrong, but I'd like to keep the suspenseful tone. Eliminating the first "there" (preferred option, for now) would weaken the feeling of suspense, eliminationg the second "there" (as I was advised to do) sounds a bit weird to me, but maybe it's not. What would you advise?  |
| The Grim Reaper, death itself/herself/himself? Posted: 09 May 2021 06:09 AM PDT I want to write a sentence about the Grim Reaper (symbolism for death). I have this sentence -
Somewhere I heard the sentence
but that just sounds it's about the death and not a reference to the Grim Reaper. In Czech literature, the reaper is portrayed as a woman, and I think in English she is too, but the Grim Reaper sounds masculine.  |
| Posted: 09 May 2021 01:58 AM PDT
I don't know what "value measures" part exactly means.  |
| How to improve my English? [closed] Posted: 09 May 2021 01:29 AM PDT I believe I am a learner with high intermediate level of English and now encounter obstacles in learning English. What I did to improve English when I started learning English, such as reading articles and listening to radio, do not help me much because I am no longer a novice in learning English. I do not know how to further improve my English except trying to learn some new words. Can anyone provide me with some guidance on how to improve my English? I also would like to know how native English speakers improve their mother language!  |
| Reference Request on Preposition Fronting Posted: 09 May 2021 05:27 AM PDT Currently reading "A Student's Introduction to English Grammar" by Geoffrey K. Pullum and Rodney Huddleston. Consider the following contrast between the phrasal verbs ask for and come across. "The information for which I asked."—is given as grammatical. "The information across which I came."—is given as ungrammatical, as in this case preposition fronting is not allowed. Are there any good dictionaries which clearly state when preposition fronting is allowed? None of the freely available ones seem to have this feature (Merriam-Webster, Macmillan, Oxfordlearnersdictionaries), not even the web version of the Oxford English Dictionary. Edit in response to comments: In the example above, 'across' is correctly classified as a preposition. You can see that it can be a complement for a noun phrase in the example: "My travels across the ocean have been perilous."  |
| Posted: 09 May 2021 08:00 AM PDT What I mean is being uncultured, not necessarily evil. This is often the case with people who have recently climbed the socio-economical ladder and newly gained huge wealth in a short amount of time, without developing the culture and character. In my native language we have a term to describe these people who lose themselves when they become rich but in English I haven't encountered such a categorization. Edit: Please stop making false accusations against me. I agree that these examples may be inappropriate but I have no intention of humiliating any race or class in this question. You can read my answers in the comments below this question. Edit 2: I removed the examples.  |
| What do "industry's exposure" mean and meaning in context? Posted: 09 May 2021 09:38 AM PDT Dong, 2019, page 898 documented:
I mainly want to ask about the second quoted sentence, which is italicized, but I quoted three sentences that we can have a better context. I have three questions here: 1> What does industry's exposure mean in the second sentence? 2> Is there any way to simplify the second sentence that is easier for me to understand, I totally get lost when reading this sentence? My understanding is: We assume "a firm" in this sentence is firm A in industry "Manufacturing" in the US, and"countries to which the firm's industry sends a significant fraction of its exports" is China. So, whether this sentence can be shortened to "we rely on the industry's exposure and define the treatment based on how much Manufacturing industry in the US exporting to the Manufacturing industry in China"? I tried to simplify the sentence as much as I can but I failed to do so. 3> What does the relative pronoun"this" in "This variable accounts for" in the third sentence refer to based on this context. In another word, what is the antecedent of "this" in this case?  |
| Posted: 09 May 2021 03:43 AM PDT Overseas ESL students were asked to transform a sentence into passive voice. One gave an unexpected answer, and their teacher consulted with me.
Main question: Is that the appropriate place for "all in a row"? The student's answer struck me as natural enough, but I didn't know if it was grammatical or idiomatic. The first question I have is whether "all in a row" is an adverbial phrase modifying "carved", as that's how the student seemed to interpret it. The teacher's point of view is that it's an adjectival phrase modifying "huge statues of heads". In my view, there's enough ambiguity that both interpretations can be correct. Am I right in my assessment so far? My mind is bending around whether the statues were physically arranged in a row before being carved or after, but I feel like that might be off-track. At any rate, the final position seems like the only home for "all in a row" in the adverbial sense as "carved all in a row huge statues of heads" doesn't sound right. Edit: Actually, "Huge statues of heads were carved all in a row by the people of Rapa Nui" also seems acceptable. I did find a related StackExchange question: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/37601/passive-sentences-placing-an-adverbial-before-or-after-the-agent. There it was concluded that the adverbial "at school" could be placed after the verb or after the agent depending on emphasis:
The active voice here would be structurally similar to our original, "Vasya did this homework at school." However, "This homework at school was done by Vasya" doesn't sound right. That's why I opened this new question, as I don't think our sentences parallel each other completely.  |
| Why is ‘prejudice’ syllabified as Prej-u-dice? Posted: 09 May 2021 07:08 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: 09 May 2021 08:00 AM PDT Should there be a comma after "me" in the sentence "me, who likes to read"?  |
| Posted: 09 May 2021 04:03 AM PDT I am trying to write an academic essay. But I am stuck in connecting two sentences. I want to find a substitute for the meanwhile connector because I have already overused it in the other parts of my essay. Could you please kindly let me know an academic-friendly suitable synonym or another connector.
I have already checked online but I couldn't find much information googling. Really appreciate your help  |
| idiom or a smooth way to say that the game is the right level/scope for a person? Posted: 09 May 2021 07:05 AM PDT I'm looking for a way to say that a certain game is challenging enough (but not too much) and of the right scope. So far I came up with 'This game is in my league' but that doesn't sound quite right.  |
| How to syllabify "very" or "merry" etc in British English? Posted: 09 May 2021 07:50 AM PDT How should words like merry or very be syllabified in British English. I learned from the answer to my first question that words that have vowels like /ʌ ɪ ʊ ɛ/ should have a consonant after that vowel. So "obsessive" is /əb.sɛs.sɪv/ (the middle syllable has a consonant after the vowel ɛ). Below is the paragraph from that answer: Yet another theory says that the consonant following the lax vowels /ʌ ɪ ʊ ɛ/ should be ambisyllabic. 'Ambisyllabic' means that it it belongs to both the preceding and the following syllable. So according to the ambisyllabicity theory, obsessive can be syllabified as: /əb.sɛs.sɪv/ -- But what if there is an r after the vowel ɛ in words like "merry" and "very"? If I divide "very" into syllables as vɛr.i (because the vowel ɛ should have a consonant after it) then the first syllables ends in an r and in British English, words do not end in R sound (for example the R in "bar" is silent). What should I do in the case I described above? How should one syllabify? .......... "Closed. This question needs details or clarity. It is not currently accepting answers." It is strange that this question was closed. I have provided details in my question. Could you please tell me how else can I clarify it? Is there really no way to do the division of those words? Please consider reopening my question; I really am confused as to how to do the division of those words. Thank you so much. Why would you need to know this? For example, for writing music for singers:  |
| The correct usage of the word "saying" in the relative clauses Posted: 09 May 2021 05:08 AM PDT Eg1: Each of my workers had documentation saying they didn't have to work more than 8 hours. Eg2: The published article saying there may be as many as 47 titles. In the above examples, SAYING has been used as the conjunction to add more information. I was wondering that the word saying can be used in other situations besides these examples (except documents). If so, pls explain with examples..!  |
| usage of more common/more frequently/more often Posted: 09 May 2021 06:02 AM PDT Imagine this conversation between 2 persons :- Person A to Person B: This event never takes place. Person A to Person B: This event never takes place. Is the usage of more common/more frequently/more often correct in this scenario?  |
| Is there a language technique that categories inverse meanings? Posted: 09 May 2021 03:05 AM PDT After being asked if I want a receipt at the markets, I notice I can alternate between - I'm good - I'm fine - I'm okay All of these by literal meaning, vaguely motions a "positive" response, whilst they are used in a negative way, i.e. "No thanks" What do we call this a type of language technique? If there is such a thing  |
| The meaning of causative 'have' Posted: 09 May 2021 02:00 AM PDT
About this pair, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Page 1236) says:
This I think means that we have equivalence in meaning between them. But as for an apparently similar pair, Paul M. Postal says in his paper "On Raising" (page 320):
I don't see any reason for treating the examples in CGEL and 'On Raising' differently, so why is it that CGEL says the passivation doesn't change the meaning whereas Postal says it does change the meaning "on one reading at least"? EDITIn order to make it clear what Postal means by "on one reading", here's a summary of what Postal says in pages 318-320:
So, I think Postal's "on one reading" refers to reading (86) as not having a 'raising' construction, because passivation wouldn't change the meaning in a 'raising' construction. Apparently, Postal thinks that Postal's (86) can be construed as not involving a 'raising' construction, whereas CGEL thinks that CGEL's (1)/(2) can only be construed as involving a 'raising' construction. Having said that, I think a more specific question is this: Is there any reason for this different treatment? Or is either Postal or CGEL mistaken?  |
| Why did Jitney become slang for nickel? Posted: 09 May 2021 09:31 AM PDT According to Merriam-Webster, jitney is slang for nickel:
It also says the etymology is unknown. Are there any theories as to the origin of jitney?  |
| Word for non-humanoid characters with artificial intelligence? Posted: 09 May 2021 01:31 AM PDT I am writing an essay on a book that I read where many of the characters are not human and have artificial intelligence instead. When I try to describe these characters, though, I find myself using "android", "machine", and "robot," none of which seems correct. The characters are not humanoid, so I am not sure if android is the correct word for them (although I think it was used in the book). I also tried using "inhuman" and "nonhuman", but I feel like those may be too vague. I feel as if calling the characters "machines" sounds too insensitive since they express many traits that humans do and my essay is about how they are very similar to humans despite not being human. Does anyone have good synonyms for "android" or "robot" for me to describe these characters?  |
| Word to describe person who is rich in wealth, but is poor in class? Posted: 09 May 2021 02:01 AM PDT Looking for a word to describe a person who is rich in wealth, but is poor in class. I've heard of words to describe poor people who have no class or manners, words to describe rich people who have class and manners, but I've not heard of a word to describe people who are rich in terms of wealth but lack manners and class. Is there a specific word for that? I'm looking to describe a few men in politics who clearly best exemplify this but I don't have a word to describe them besides "poor in class but filthy rich"? The sentence I wanted to use is: "Some men in politics, such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, have very contrasting attributes. Because they are both filthy rich, yet class is nowhere to be seen, I like to call these two _________"  |
| What do you call someone or a group of people who split off from a main group? Posted: 09 May 2021 01:23 AM PDT What is a single word for someone or a group of people who split off from a main group because they're dissatisfied with its state? I was thinking something along the lines of mutiny, but that's a bit too extreme. For example: A group of students split off from the main robotics team and formed their own. The original team did something while the ______ (splitters?) did something else.  |
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