Saturday, June 5, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Do educated native speakers ever use sentences like: (1) I could have married her if she agreed. (2) I could marry her if she had agreed [closed]

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 09:05 AM PDT

Do educated native speakers ever use sentences like

  1. I could have married her if she agreed.
  2. I could marry her if she had agreed.

The usage of "one" [migrated]

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 08:26 AM PDT

I remember hearing a sentence with the word "one". E.g. There are three tomatoes. Two of them are red. The ones being red are so delicious. Is the usage of "the ones" correct? I don't even know if there is a usage like that. And I've also tried to reduce the clause "that are red" into "being red" but I'm not sure if it's true or not. I'd be grateful if you could answer both of these questions. Thank you...

What does it mean by "make it all" [migrated]

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 07:41 AM PDT

For example,

This has made it all the more necessary for us to convey that method.

I saw the translation was "consequently, we should insist on conveying that method" in another language, but why it was changed into "made it all the more necessary"? What's the meaning of "all"?
It really puzzled me.

What is it called when someone does something irrational out of custom or habit? [duplicate]

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 08:45 AM PDT

What is it called when someone does something irrational out of custom or habit?

For example, in the 1982 film, The Verdict, the case revolves around a medical document in which there is a discrepancy between an original document and a photocopy of that document. The defense argues that the photocopy is evidence that the original document had been altered and the photocopied version should be considered the authoritative record of what the document originally said.

The judge in the case rules against the defense because there is/was a legal principle that an original document always takes precedence over a copy of that document. However, this legal principle was established when copies of documents were made by hand and photocopy technology did not exist. So, essentially what is happening is that the courts are following an old custom that is illogical or irrational in light of modern technology. What is it called when this happens?

What is more appropriate in this sentence - both or each?

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 03:34 AM PDT

Communication and interpersonal skills are ________ important in their own ways.

The above sentence is a GATE 2014 MCQ Question with the following options -

  • both
  • each
  • all
  • either

The options 'all' and 'either' are certainly not the answer. I am convinced that 'both' is the right answer. I have doubts whether 'each' is equally right or not.

I have read the distinction between both and each in this question but I don't understand how to use the knowledge here.

The doubt is due to this question about is/are each.

What does it mean for someone to "claim their power"? [closed]

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 04:52 AM PDT

I have encountered this phrase a few times and I don't know what it denotes; for example in these two sentences:

Mothers are a influential demographic to be reckoned with. As they gain awareness of risks to their families' health, they will claim their power.

Such legislative arrangements and legal stipulations allow local governments to claim their power in urban conservation while excluding other groups such as professionals, local residents and tourism workers from decision-making.

Does it mean they gain power, or perhaps exert their power, or something else?

Can 'nowhere' be used as a subject?

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 04:12 AM PDT

I am utterly confused... The thing is I was helping a friend do an exercise in which she needed to put some words in the correct order to form a grammatical English sentence. The words in question were:

in / my / Nowhere / shop / than / ice cream / town / sells / else / our / uncle's / better

I was at a loss because I could not find a way to make a proper sentence using those words. My proposal was Nowhere else in town does ice cream sell better than in my uncle's shop, but in that case I would need an extra preposition and an auxiliary for inversion.

The plot thickens. When my friend asked her professor, he said that the correct answer should be Nowhere else in our town sells better ice cream than my uncle's shop. This sounds completely wrong to me. Am I losing my mind?

What is the name given to a part of a sentence that's the result of a verb? [migrated]

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 03:13 AM PDT

For example, given the sentence:

Yankee batters hit the ball well enough to win their first World Series since 2000.

What is the name given to the part "to win their first World Series since 2000" which is the result of the event "Yankee batters hit the ball"?

Opposite of "the last one"

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 07:22 AM PDT

Let's say there is a group of people that takes turns in carrying out a certain task. This task can be done by other people outside the group, and members of the group can repeat the same task over time.

I am looking for the opposite form of "Who was the last person to carry out the task"? Would the question "Who hasn't done the task the longest?" be correct?

To deepen the example let's take the following scenario:

  • 60 days ago the task was completed by Person A
  • 50 days ago the task was completed by Person B
  • 40 days ago the task was completed by Person C
  • 30 days ago the task was completed by Person B
  • 20 days ago the task was completed by Person B

I want to find out who has NOT done the task in the longest time (Person A) - or the opposite of the last person who has completed the task.

What would be the right question to find out?

Tense in content for data analysis [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 11:43 PM PDT

I understand the principle of using tense. Still, it is confused in some scientific writing. for example, I presented a figure of comparison of two scenarios with some distributions.

For example,

A whole day sketch of the traffic, in contrast to the normal situation, is drawn in Figure 1.

A whole day sketch of the traffic, in contrast to the normal situation, was drawn in Figure 1.

Which one should I use?

Thanks

Is 'incorrectly' a real word? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 11:16 PM PDT

Is 'incorrectly' a real word?

Came across this question and was not sure of the answer. My feeling is that it is not a legal word.

How to compare two periods of time properly using "nearly as(or the) same" in the sentence?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 11:10 PM PDT

I want to compare two periods of time and say that the current one is not "nearly the same as it was in 2010". How to say this sentence properly? (Or should I use "nearly as same as it was"?)

Who shapes the person you are the most?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:19 PM PDT

Who shapes the person you are the most?

I saw this sentence on the official website of British Council.

I feel confused about the clause.

Anyone helps to parse this sentence structure?

What does "flood had made" mean?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:01 PM PDT

A yawl is in the Thames and then

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

What does flood had made mean? Is the tide rising or ebbing?

"What went we out into this wilderness to find?" This sentence is grammatically correct. How?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 09:38 PM PDT

"What went we out into this wilderness to find?"

This is the first dialogue of the movie 'The VVitch'. I can't understand how this sentence is correct. I asked my teacher, she told me that it is a structurally liberal sentence that is used to create an impact on the reader. I checked many grammar checking websites (like Grammarly, Becorrect, Ginger, &c.) and found this sentence correct. Please help.

"Play up" phrasal verb usage [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 07:35 PM PDT

Is it correct If i said to my drama queen friend: "don't play it up, it's just a small wound" (meant "don't exaggerate")?

If yes, Is it commonly used (as a slang) ?

What is the role of "destitute" in this sentence?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 07:27 PM PDT

The sentence appeared in the Isaiah 3:26 - "destitute, she will sit on the ground." The dictionary definition of "destitute" is that it is an adjective. However I don't think I have seen an adjective used before a noun/pronoun separted by a comma (as the case here) in my experience. What part of speech is the term "destitute" here? Is it an adjective or an adverb or else? Does it function as a word, a phrase or a shortened clause or else? Cheers

Should "more often than not" be between commas in a sentence?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 07:27 PM PDT

I'm writing an essay for college and I'm unsure if I should add commas in between "more often than not".

What I wrote: "However, a topic as important as sex education is, is, more often than not, a taboo amongst parents and families."

I was thinking maybe it should be like this: "However, a topic as important as sex education is, is more often than not a taboo amongst parents and families."

"from the standpoint of" vs "in terms of"

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 08:16 PM PDT

I've been confused by the usage of "from the standpoint of" and "in terms of". Could anyone tell me if both of the following sentences are correct?　

In terms of a high standard living, the US and the UK are leaders in the world.

From the standpoint of high standard living, the US and the UK are leaders in the world.

It would be highly appreciated if you could explain those two phrases with some examples. Thanks in advance.

What is the origin of the phrase "play a part/role"? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 10:42 PM PDT

From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English:

play a part/role
to have an effect or influence on something

Does this phrase come from the theater or somewhere else?

From thefreedictionary.com:

play a role in (something)
2. Literally, to have a job portraying a certain character in a performance.

If a person is an actor and plays a role in a theatrical performance, this does not make him an important person. In a play, he can be replaced by someone else, maybe even by someone better than him. In addition, there are simple, insignificant roles that anyone can play at all, not even a professional actor. Thus, playing a role in a play does not mean being important, irreplaceable, and influential.

Moreover, "to play a role" means to be not real, because a person does not play himself on stage. He plays a literary character. He is not himself.

However, this phrase is used in a serious way to mean involvement and influence.

Is this a metaphor? What is the comparison here?

From theanalyst.com as an example:

He played a major role in Bayern's ninth consecutive championship during the 2020-21 Bundesliga, as the only player with double figures of goals (11) and assists (18) in the competition. No other player was involved in as many open-play sequences ending with a shot as Müller (186), with 14 of these being the final pass before a goal.

Literally "He played a major role in Bayern's ninth consecutive championship..." means: He was an actor who played a major role in the play "Bayern's ninth consecutive championship". He is not himself because he played a role. He's just an actor, nothing really depends on him. The play does not change the plot if the major role is played by someone else.

It turns out that the figurative meaning of the metaphor is almost completely opposite to the literal one.

However, a metaphor must use an analogy, a metaphor is not irony to use an opposite meaning.

What is the etymology or origin of the phrase «play a part/role»?

Why "thine heart" but "thy whole heart"?

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 01:29 AM PDT

I have somehow picked up the use of the two different forms "thy/thine" from the KJV Bible, and I thought I knew the rule. Use thy before consonants and thine before vowels or before words starting with the sound [h].

There are plenty of instances of thine heart or thine hands in the KJV for example, and while doing a translation from Greek into KJV style English, I almost went along with thine whole heart, since whole, just like hand and heart, starts with the same sound. Right? Well, on second thought I just thought I'd check to see if I find any instances of it, and I was surprised to find:

If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light. KJV

I disagree with sites that say

** "Thy" and "thine" are archaic forms corresponding to "your" and "yours" respectively. Use "thy" where you would use "your" (but see note at end of answer) and "thine" where you would use "yours".

because it is very clear to me that thine can definitely mean both your and yours. One answer to this question from the ELU agrees with me, but it does not fully address the phonetic problem of words starting with the sound [h].

Does anyone know the rule? Is it actually a phonetic rule, or an orthographic one?

What are the main clause and subordinate clauses in this sentence as spoken by a four-year-old child with DLD [closed]

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 08:08 AM PDT

And they be happy they got the airplane.

I have said one main clause is 'they be happy'. The second main clause is 'they got the airplane'.

Is this correct? Are there any subordinating clauses in this sentence?

they be happy:

They - subject
be - verb
happy - predicative complement

they got the airplane.

they - subject
got - verb
the airplane - direct object

Does all this seem correct?

The child is a 4-year-old client. I am a speech therapy student.

What is the grammatically correct way of attributing possession to the noun phrase "her and others"?

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 03:06 AM PDT

"I also felt an urgent need to be able to do more to directly impact her and others' lives during..."

Is the bold part grammatically correct? Should it be "her and others' life"? Do I need to break it up and say "her life and the lives of others"?

"with a predisposition to" OR " prone to" [closed]

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 09:07 AM PDT

Which sentence is correct/better?

The difference of sleep hygiene according to social status and age was statistically significant in patients with a predisposition to insomnia

OR

The difference of sleep hygiene according to social status and age was statistically significant in patients prone to insomnia

Adverb or Relative clause

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 04:04 AM PDT

Is "by the time"a subordinate conjunction used to introduce Adverb time clause as mentioned at few sites. Ex-I reached there by the time he started. I feel the clause following "time"has "when/that"implied and does the work of a relative clause modifying the Noun "time".

Are "phonics" and "Phoenician" related?

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 06:12 AM PDT

I was watching a history lecture recently, and the professor stated that after the Greek "dark ages," during which their previously used written language was lost and forgotten, a new written language was developed by essentially stealing the pre-existing Phoenician alphabet and assigning sounds to each of the letters.

This is the earliest documented use of a phonetic alphabet in history (that I know of), and it occurred to me that the words "Phonics" and "Phoenician" might be related; in fact, this relationship makes it seem extremely unlikely that there is no relationship between the terms.

Can anyone explain the similarities between these words, and determine whether my guess is correct?

Is there a prefix to denote neutrality?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 07:23 PM PDT

English has prefixes to denote opposition as well as absence.

For example:

  • 'gnostic' vs 'agnostic' (having knowledge vs absence of knowledge)
  • 'social' vs 'asocial' vs 'anti social' (being social, not being social, being against society)

However there is a subtle difference between the absence of something and being neutral towards it. For example let;s say that I want to indicate that I am a little bit social, but not too social.

I am not 'asocial' because it's false that I am not social. But I am also not fully social. Rather I am something in the middle.

The above is just an example, it doesn't have to be the word 'social' I just want to know whether English has a prefix to explicitly convey the subtility of neutrality.

When can I use "Only do ..." vs. when must I use "Only ..." without the "do"?

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 06:02 AM PDT

I'm writing a scientific paper and my supervisor (who is non-native speaker, whereas I am a native speaker) asked me to change this construct:

Only do males have a y chromosome.

to

Only males have a y chromosome.

with no do. Is the former construct ungrammatical, or barring that, awkward?

I know that there are some situations where we need to use the do-structure, e.g.:

Only afterwards does she apologise.

So does this pattern apply to my sentence? Why or why not?

For context, the broader passage I'm writing begins with:

In stage 3 researchers look for connections between these genes, for example by performing Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA). Here the set of identified genes are compared with predefined sets of genes. The predefined sets of genes indicate a known relation. For example having a related function, existing in the same location in the cell or taking part in the same pathway. A further way a set could be defined is a topological set, which takes into account finer grained internal relations to define a set. For example a topological set could be identified by community detection in a gene regulatory network.

Which sets up a context describing different types of sets; then, the passage where the sentence in question appears is:

In contrast to having two stages for analysis, analysis can be performed in one stage. Past ILP research has integrated the two stages of finding differently expressed genes and GSEA by using relational subgroup discovery. These have used the hierarchical Gene Ontology to relate genes and has the advantage of being able to construct novel sets by sharing variables across predicates that define the sets. For example a set could be defined as the genes that have been annotated with two GO terms. Other ways researchers have tried to integrate the use of known relations is by adapting the classification approach. New features are built by aggregating across a predefined set of genes - for example by taking an average expression value for a pathway.

In most of these methods it is common to ignore the detailed relations between entities in a pathway, the pathway is treated as an unstructured set of genes. Only do topologically defined sets take advantage of any known internal relations. On the other hand ...

The whys and the hows

Posted: 05 Jun 2021 08:42 AM PDT

Are apostrophes needed in this phrase?

The whys and the hows

I searched for duplicate questions, but the closest I found was in regard to words inside quotes.

Why "go off", as in "alarm went off"?

Posted: 04 Jun 2021 08:54 PM PDT

I was wondering why does something goes off, when it in fact does the opposite

  • bomb goes off - it blows up
  • alarm goes off - it turns on

Why not goes on?
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