Friday, June 4, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

what does "up at the front sat" mean? and is "up" as an adverb?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 10:48 AM PDT

They sat in the high seats at the back of the bus, and Poppy sank into her book. Up at the front sat a European woman in her forties, dressed in a satin suit and high-heeled shoes as if for an outing.

Is "up" in the bold part as an adverb? and the sentence in bold mean "a European woman sat in one of the front seat that was very near to front of the bus"?

What word describes a specific place [duplicate]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:45 AM PDT

I'd like to know the exact word in English for "place or building from which there is an unobstructed view of the surroundings and intended for observation".

Signs...when referencing a sign, how would you punctuate it?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 08:16 AM PDT

When referencing a sign, how would you punctuate it?

The captain turned off the No Smoking sign.

The captain turned off the "No Smoking" sign.

The captain turned off the no smoking sign.

I believe the 2nd and 3rd example may be correct, but I don't believe the 1st example is correct. The Collins Dictionary doesn't capitalize "no smoking" in its example sentences,

Smoking is allowed in areas that do not display a no smoking sign. There are no smoking signs in all the no-smoking rooms. No smoking signs must be displayed prominently in restaurants and hotels.

But I cannot find an example in the Merriam Webster Dictionary (and I don't know how reputable the Collins Dictionary is). I know that when referring to buttons on a phone/remote you put it in quotations, "Susie pressed the 'On' button," but I'm not entirely sure if that applies to signs as well.

I am only following the Chicago Manuel of Style 17th ed. but it makes no mention of signs/how to punctuate when referencing them.

Are there any rules for placing a noun after a preposition? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:00 AM PDT

I still cannot master which form of nouns (singular or plural) should be placed before and after the proposition "of".

For example, if I want to refer to one book of each student, which one is correct:

  1. A book of students
  2. Books of students

And if I want to refer to the books of each student. Which one is correct?

  1. Books of the student
  2. Books of students

Is this sentence grammatically correct? (neither + past tense) [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 07:46 AM PDT

Can it be treated like a scenario where the objectA did not get to us, neither did objectB?

What is the word for a meaning

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 08:01 AM PDT

I'd like to know the exact word in English for the agricultural machine for digging and cleaning ditches (to facilitate the flow of water). I think bulldozer is not the right one for this.

American rice vs rice of America

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 08:02 AM PDT

The following is a question from the university entrance examination held in 1994 using the DNC Japan Test.

Can you tell the difference between rice grown in Japan and ?

  1. American one, 2) American rice, 3) one of America, 4) rice of America

Correct answer is 2. I'd like to know why 4 is incorrect. If there were another option 4',

4') the rice of America

would 4' be also the correct answer? The reason why I think 4' might be right is that there is a book called The Wines of America by Leon D. Adams.

A specific word for the way leaves/petals carpet the ground?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:49 AM PDT

I'm wondering if there's a specific word for the way leaves or petals carpet and scatter on the ground. I can think of all sorts of beautiful poetic ways to describe the way it sprinkles like confetti, but is there an unusual or old word for it? I like to think there is a word for it in German or Japanese.

edit: eg "The crimson petals from the cherry tree scattered the lawn."

Can "agency" in the sense of "self-agency" be plural?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 06:39 AM PDT

My question pertains to academic writing in fields like philosophy.

Normally "agency" meaning "the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power" (Merriam-Webster) is an uncountable noun, as in "My agency in this matter is limited. I can't do much to help you."

In academic usage, can it also be plural? Example: "Refugees have many agencies in resisting marginalization," meaning they have many different ways of taking control. Or should it be "Refugees have a great deal of agency." Can anyone find an example of the plural "agencies" in academic writing? I just need to know if it's permissible.

Is it wrong to say ‘sourness is the taste’?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 06:20 AM PDT

Sourness is the taste that detects acidity.

from Wikipedia: Taste#Sourness.

I think it's like saying redness is the color, not red is the color. Should it be 'sour taste'?

I want to understand this expression about "language", is it literally used or not?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 05:22 AM PDT

Everyone automatically categorizes and generalizes all the time. Unconsciously. It is not a question of being prejudiced or enlightened. Categories are absolutely necessary for us to function. They give structure to our thoughts. Imagine if we saw every item and every scenario as truly unique ― we would not even have a language to describe the world around us. But the necessary and useful instinct to generalize can distort our world view. It can make us mistakenly group together things, or people, or countries that are actually very different. It can make us assume everything or everyone in one category is similar. And, maybe, most unfortunate of all, it can make us jump to conclusions about a whole category based on a few, or even just one, unusual example.

Question) Does the expression "a language" literally mean "language"? (for example, Korean, English etc,,,)

I think it points to a kind of structure to see the world more clearly and logically.

What do you guys think about it?

Is "behind technology" a misleading name to use for tech blog that covers behind the scenes of technology [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:15 AM PDT

I'd like to blog about how various tech-oriented projects work behind the scenes and handle interviews with people that run them. Would it be misleading to call it "Behind Technology" due to missing "behind the scenes" and due to "behind" being used to describe something that is not leading?

In this video is Sia saying what i wrote? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 03:43 AM PDT

English is not my first language. In fact, I don't know if in this video Sia is saying what I wrote in the next paragraph (link of the video:https://youtu.be/031blA0UCW0).

Can someone tell me if I wrote exactly what Sia is saying in the video? I just wanna understand what she is saying in the video...

So... is she saying this? "I love you, keep going. It's the only way out is through, if you're feeling suicidal, you know, if you're feeling the isolation, do anything you can to connect with your community or any community. There are also lots of meetings, 12-step meetings and club hobby meetings that you can have, that you can go find on Zoom and just be a part of a group of people talking to one another, it's called co-regulation, and it's um... it's talking to another human being and it's imperative for our brain health and so my recommendation is.. is just do not isolate is to make just call everybody and you're fine until somebody picks up and just talk to them 20 minutes of talking to them will help regulate your brain".

"Under what form would our government operate?" Is this correct phrasing? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 04:32 AM PDT

In this sentence

Under what form would our government operate?

I am wondering whether Under what form or In which/what form would be the correct phrasing, and I realised that I can't find the answer. Does anyone have any ideas?

Possessive apostrophe in phrasal descriptor [duplicate]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 06:33 AM PDT

If I want to describe a person/group and then refer to something of theirs. Would these be permissible?

  1. The guy in charge's hat
  2. It is the people of France's doing
  3. It is everyone else's fault
  4. The electrified fence's voltage

Which more commonly would be phrased like:

  1. The hat of the guy in charge
  2. The people of France did it
  3. Everyone else is at fault
  4. The voltage of the electrified fence

If it is not what are the rules? Or where can I find the rules pertaining to this construction?

In my native language the former examples can all be constructed like singular compound words, where the ownership would be indicated at the end of just one word.

What is this grammar structure, adding a noun after the verb "stand"

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:27 AM PDT

I have been reading The Dark Elf trilogy and one sentence got my attention, and I don't know what grammar structure is behind the sentence which justifies its grammatical correctness.

The sentence is:

"Where, in ages past, there had been an empty cavern of roughly shaped stalactites and stalagmites now stands artistry."

I do understand the meaning of "stands artistry" means the cavern now looks good, but I can't search other similar usage of adding a noun after the verb "stand".

When is 'get' interchangeable with 'be' and do we use 'have' only when it has a causative meaning?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 10:22 AM PDT

Get

In (1) we can interchange was with get and thus we have (2). However, this is not only the case as in (3), we cannot use get instead of is, like in (4). How can we tell whether is interchangeable or not?

  1. John was fired.
  2. John got fired.
  3. Robert is liked by everyone.
  4. *Robert gets liked by everyone.
  5. Fred got his car stolen. (causative)

Have

I've only seen have been used along with a passive complement, which has a causative meaning. Is this always the case?

  1. Cecil had his cair repaired by a trustworthy mechanic.
  2. I had my car towed away by the police.
  3. Susan had Carlos fired.

Can you replace 'whose' with 'that'?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:05 AM PDT

I was browsing through reddit when I stumbled upon this sentence:

I've dated a few girls that English wasn't their first language and it was always a struggle when things got really emotional.

I could only make sense of this sentence if I replaced that with whose.

Is it grammatically correct and would native speakers use this construction?

Can one use "disposition" to describe an intangible object or value? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 06:55 AM PDT

While I understand that disposition is used to describe a person's inherent temperament or nature, but can it be used to describe a "particular industry or stream or its traditional fixed definition or mood"?

For example:

Fashion is endlessly evolving and is the second-largest job providing industry in the world and yet people around the world only recognize it for its ephemeral disposition.

Are there any other words I can use in its place that describes the same spirit as mentioned in the bold text — that is, some particular industry or stream or its traditional fixed definition or mood?

What's a better choice for "a variety of mediums"?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 06:51 AM PDT

I read the following in a workplace communication this morning:

We plan to communicate our re-entry strategies and schedules throughout the summer (using a variety of mediums) to help everyone plan accordingly.

I know what's meant, but "a variety of mediums" puts me in mind of a tag-team séance. Although "media" might be the more correct plural in the intended sense, it has the [recent?] implication of "mass media", which is not what's meant here.

What might have been a better way to write this?

BTW, this was not my sentence, it came in an official communication from the C-suite at my employer. It seemed "off" to me, but I couldn't think of a better way to put it.

What is the function of the first " it"?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 07:45 AM PDT

Here is a sentence in which two " it" appear in the same coordinate clause.

This job involves a lot of hard work but it is worth it.

Obviously, the second " it" refers back to the noun phrase "hard work". However, there is an argument about the first " it" : some people say it refers back to the other noun phrase, "the job"; I don't agree and I think the first "it" serves as a dummy subject, like that which is in "It's worth sth/doing sth." Am I right?

Anti-vax origins of "vaxxed" [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 05:14 AM PDT

The world* is talking about getting vaccinated, and saying "vaxxed" to do so. Here are the first five Google News results for "vaxxed":

  • "Free Joints for Vaxxed People in DC Today"

  • "Please Go Get Vaxxed So We Can Hang Out Again"

  • "The New York Post spent weeks fearmongering about vaccines. Now it's telling them to 'GET VAXXED'"

  • "Get vaxxed and ready"

  • "Vaxxed, waxed and ready to kick off Shot Girl Summer in L.A.? Here are 5 expert tips"

That last one hints at my initial curiosity: vaxxed, waxed – isn't it odd we put two xs in vaxxed? We don't for waxed or vexed or fixed, or any other word ending in -x – except, interestingly, another newly coined, highly politicized word, doxxed.

The subjective experience of living in 2021 reveals the popular preference for vaxxed over vaxed – see the headlines above, social media, etc. Google Trends shows similarly.

Google Ngrams starts to complicate and flesh out tale. Vaxed, the spelling of choice in the 1918 pandemic, predominates usage until 2016, when Vaxxed, capitalized, takes over. Interestingly, lower-case vaxxed makes a single appearance in Google's 1800-2019 English corpus.

The capitalized Vaxxed makes reference to 2016 pseudoscience documentary Vaxxed, about the imagined ties between vaccines and autism – the early core of the anti-vac movement.

Five years later, a world dependent on vaccines is talking about the doses in a flurry, and has appropriated the conspiracist orthography: vaxxed.

So what's going on? Are there non-anti-vax origins to the spelling? Is there a linguistic rationale for the double x? Given the double x's other appearance in recent and charged doxxed, are we observing a change in orthographical norms (perhaps toward duplicate letters, broadly, or a changed pronunciation/conceptualization of x) or is there simply a provocative appearance to xx, encouraging its use in provocative words?

*Particularly the portion of the world with patent-protected exclusive access to vaccines.

Is there a term to refer to the back view of a person?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 03:59 AM PDT

I know "profile" refers to a side view of a person's face, but is there any common terms that means the image of a person seen from behind?

rear profile?

back figure?

hind view?

Full height picture of a person from behind

What kind of verb classification is "causative"?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:46 AM PDT

I understand why "causative" verbs like "let" and "allow" are described this way, but I don't understand how this classification relates to other verb descriptors. Is "causative" a peer or child of "transitive" classification, more related to classifications like dynamic, stative, auxiliary, and modal, an attribute that is a part of aspect or mood, or yet another dimension? If the last, are they are other peer classes to "causative"?

Why "faced" not "face"?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:06 AM PDT

Could you please help me understand why the verb "face" is used in the past, in the following sentence, not in the present although the first part of the sentence is describing a future situation?

The sentence is : "You're never going to run in the Olympics. It's time you faced (up to) the facts."

Appreciate you help.

Is there a word for the act of subduing something?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 05:21 AM PDT

I'm referring to military forces subduing another group of military forces. Subduction is what I initially thought of but that specifically refers to the geological process involving tectonic plates. I'm trying to say that "the ... (act of subduing) the x guard was legitimate and legal" but was hoping for a word (like subduction except it doesn't mean what I want it to mean) instead of a phrase. Thank you!

Word that means non-human animals?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:03 AM PDT

Humans are animals.

The term "animals" is sometimes used to mean all animals (including humans) and is sometimes used to mean every animal except for humans.

Is there a word that means non-human animals?

"A friend to all is a friend to none" - Aristotle. What does this exactly mean? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 08:12 AM PDT

Why shouldn't a person be friendly to everyone? Is "being friendly" and "being a friend" being differentiated here?

Also, I consider a person as one's friend only if that person doesn't betray his/her other friends. So going by my rule of friendship, there won't be any problem if my friend is a friend to every person, since he/she is not going to give up on me and neither he/she will give up on his/her other friends when he/she us spending his time with me.

What is the main context under which this proverb becomes true?

Can a prepositional phrase starting with "during" work as an adjectival phrase?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 03:42 AM PDT

A prepositional phrase comprising a preposition and a noun phrase can generally function either as an adjectival phrase or as an adverbial phrase.

The book on the table is mine. (The prepositional phrase on the table is an adjectival phrase modifying the noun phrase the book.)

Put the book on the table. (The prepositional phrase on the book is an adverbial phrase modifying the verb put.)

I used to think that this dual property of the prepositional phrase is applicable to all prepositions without exception. But then, here comes this example.

Do you have any plans during the vacation?

Which sounds awkward at best.

I thought about the reason why this sounded awkward. The reason I came up with is that the prepositional phrase during the vacation cannot modify any plans. It can only modify the verb have, thereby rendering the sentence awkward.

Can "during" ever lead a prepositional phrase that acts as an adjectival phrase?

What do you call those high areas that give you a full view of the city?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:43 AM PDT

A place where you could sit and see something like this (with a fall if you step further):

Sorry, since I don

(Not looking for a technical term, just a common one).
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