Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange |
- What does "full-skirted" mean in the phrase "full-skirted coat" ? (It's from Dostoyevsky's novel)
- British pronunciation of the word "year"
- To describe two things that are seemingly same but are actually different
- What does "in coming" mean here ? (Warning: Spoilers for "Crime And Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyesky)
- attaboys from petty cash
- Present simple or present continuous - I'm on the bus [duplicate]
- Which is better for naming an action: creating of something or creating something? What is the difference? [closed]
- Another Neither/Nor vs. Neither/Or Question [closed]
- meaning of would [closed]
- Word that represents the meaning of "Has been permitted access"
- Meanings of the word "kite" in the same context [closed]
- "Junk food" vs "processed food"
- Listing multiple nouns with "to" in between? [duplicate]
- Why do so many prefixes end with -o? (Visio, linguo) [closed]
- What does the phrase "I broke the mold and tossed the clay" mean?
- How to ask recipient of mail to wait a few more days? [closed]
- A word between boy/girl and man/woman? [duplicate]
- What's another word for "disingenuous interpretation" that also insinuates a malicious interpretation (not merely inaccurate)?
- "One another" when an ordered series of events or stages is involved
- What would you call someone who rather not have something than have it with bad sides?
- Began to trace it through
- Phrasal verbs as hyphenated adjectives
- What's the meaning of the mentioned sentence?
- How to say being ahead at the start
- Non-restrictive phrases are inessential, but are they nonarbitrary? [closed]
- "From three attempts a single one affirmed the chance for success." - is this grammatically acceptable?
- What word describes a musical instrument's native character?
- The meaning of the phrase I'll wait you out
| What does "full-skirted" mean in the phrase "full-skirted coat" ? (It's from Dostoyevsky's novel) Posted: 29 Jul 2021 10:35 AM PDT Here's an excerpt from the book: The persons still in the tavern were a man who appeared to be an artisan, drunk, but not extremely so, sitting before a pot of beer, and his companion, a huge, stout man with a grey beard, in a short full-skirted coat.  |
| British pronunciation of the word "year" Posted: 29 Jul 2021 10:25 AM PDT It's clear that this word is usually pronounced /jɪə/, but it seems to me that in some British accents (probably one of them is RP) it's pronounced /jeə/ so that it becomes a homophone of 'yeah'. Unfortunately, googling that gave no results, neither did I find such transcription in the dictionaries, but I hear it on Youglish very well: see examples 1, 4, 8, 9, 10 and 11 (the Queen). So the question is: is this pronunciation really valid? P.S. My mum was also taught this pronunciation in an English school when she was a child.  |
| To describe two things that are seemingly same but are actually different Posted: 29 Jul 2021 10:12 AM PDT I am now writing a research paper that tries to distinguish two computational methods. These two methods have very similar mathematical formulations but they are actually quite different. I am wondering what word or phrase I could use to describe this? I found Here is the sentence I have now.
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| Posted: 29 Jul 2021 10:42 AM PDT It's an exchange between the main character of the book named Raskolnikov and a lady which owns a Pawn Shop: 'How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna?' 'You come with such trifles, my good sir, it's scarcely worth anything. I gave you two roubles last time for your ring and one could buy it quite new at a jeweler's for a rouble and a half.' 'Give me four roubles for it, I shall redeem it, it was my father's. I shall be getting some money soon.' 'A rouble and a half, and interest in advance, if you like!' 'A rouble and a half!' cried the young man. 'Please yourself'—and the old woman handed him back the watch. The young man took it, and was so angry that he was on the point of going away; but checked himself at once, remembering that there was nowhere else he could go, and that he had had another object also in coming.  |
| Posted: 29 Jul 2021 08:55 AM PDT Anyone know what "take a couple of attaboys from petty cash" means, or where it comes from? From the context it seems to be similar to "pat yourself on the back" I googled it and found examples of it, but no real explanation of what it means.  |
| Present simple or present continuous - I'm on the bus [duplicate] Posted: 29 Jul 2021 07:49 AM PDT Present simple or present continuous? What tense are the following sentences? " I have a headache","he is on the bus",she is at work",he is tired",she is at the shop","I feel good".All these sentences describes something what is happening right now, so would it be present continious?  |
| Posted: 29 Jul 2021 07:04 AM PDT The context is a translation of a business application. There are a number of actions and they are named (the user sees a list of actions they can perform). I need to use a gerund form (not an infinitive or a noun, eg. creation). An example is creation of certain objects. What would be a suitable translation and what is the difference: "creating of something" or "creating something"?  |
| Another Neither/Nor vs. Neither/Or Question [closed] Posted: 29 Jul 2021 06:46 AM PDT Having some trouble figuring this one out -- any help would be greatly appreciated: A) While neither proof of vaccination or masks are required to attend camp, we encourage fans who are not vaccinated to wear masks. B) While neither proof of vaccination nor masks are required to attend camp, we encourage fans who are not vaccinated to wear masks.  |
| Posted: 29 Jul 2021 09:41 AM PDT When native speakers use the verb "would" in a sentence like
do they consider it in their minds as a past tense with a past meaning, as in "when I was a kid I would play soccer with my dad whenever he was home", or with a present meaning, as in "would you like a cup of coffee"?  |
| Word that represents the meaning of "Has been permitted access" Posted: 29 Jul 2021 06:45 AM PDT Is there a word in English which conveys the meaning of 'Has been permitted access' / 'Has access granted'`? Example:
Looking for something like WORD devices Use case is: User has a list of devices and has given access to some of them.  |
| Meanings of the word "kite" in the same context [closed] Posted: 29 Jul 2021 06:12 AM PDT What is the meaning of the word "kite" in the sentence- " A kite is flying in the sky." I am asking this question because the word "kite" means an object made of paper or cloth. It also means a bird of prey. Both these two words are spelt the same and can be used in the same context. How should we differentiate between the two?  |
| "Junk food" vs "processed food" Posted: 29 Jul 2021 03:59 AM PDT According to Wikipedia, the term junk food
(Cambridge) adds the denotation of speed in preparing this food:
On the other hand, processed food seems to have a similar negative connotation:
My question is: Can junk food be used as a synonym of processed food to mean unhealthy food in non-scientific contexts? Do they belong to the same register of language (my feeling is that junk food is less formal)? To be more concrete, can we swap the two expressions in these examples:
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| Listing multiple nouns with "to" in between? [duplicate] Posted: 29 Jul 2021 12:29 AM PDT Would it be grammatically correct to list multiple nouns with "to" in between? For example, "I've never seen so many desserts (from cakes to ice cream to cupcakes to cookies)." I've tried to do some research to see if this sentence format has been used before, but all I could find was:
Source: "Why the Chess Computer Deep Blue Played Like a Human", David Auerbach (https://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/why-the-chess-computer-deep-blue-played-like-a-human?curator=MediaREDEF) My apologies if this is an inappropriate question. I'm not a great writer (although I'm trying to improve) and my goal is to try and illustrate expansiveness through the listing of various examples (for example, my dessert example). However, I'm unsure if this would be grammatically correct.  |
| Why do so many prefixes end with -o? (Visio, linguo) [closed] Posted: 28 Jul 2021 10:23 PM PDT At first I was wondering about "Deleuzoguattarian" but then I saw the Wiktionary list: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_prefixes which is quite striking. The answers in Origin of colloquializing suffix -o point to a colloquial explanation, but I'm wondering if there's possibly Greek origin as well, or maybe just phonetic ease. Anyone have intuitions?  |
| What does the phrase "I broke the mold and tossed the clay" mean? Posted: 28 Jul 2021 10:59 PM PDT I was listening to a song and there was such a verse:
I can't figure out what the phrase "I broke the mold and tossed the clay" mean in this context? I read that "to break the mold" means to do something in a completely new way. But what does it mean "to toss the clay"? I'd be grateful for an explanation!  |
| How to ask recipient of mail to wait a few more days? [closed] Posted: 28 Jul 2021 08:22 PM PDT I am replying to an email, and I would like to express that I need more days to sign a contract, but in a polite manner. The obvious thing to say is
But this sounds kind of odd. Is there an alternative to this? Does the following expression make sense? I've repeated it now over and over, and can't tell anymore if that's what an English speaker would say.
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| A word between boy/girl and man/woman? [duplicate] Posted: 29 Jul 2021 02:17 AM PDT My problem is this; the words "boy" and "girl" denote youth (at least to me), while "man" and "woman" denote more of an adult. While I am aware of just adding "young" before "man" or "woman", but that feels clunky and too formal, so is there some intermediary word between the two?  |
| Posted: 29 Jul 2021 06:44 AM PDT Edit: There used to be a quote Winston Churchill here that I attempted to use to provide an example of multiple interpretations. This lead to more confusion so I chose to remove it. It still exists in the edits if you're curious, but the example below is a better example of what I'm trying to ask. What is another word/phrase for the phrase disingenuous interpretation that also insinuates an unnecessarily malicious interpretation of an event, quote, or situation? I'll explain the context using Alice and Bob:
If in the example above, Alice confronts Bob and says "That was a maliciously disingenuous interpretation", it could communicate that that Bob was being malicious with their inaccurate interpretation. What I'm hoping for is a word/phrase that communicates The interpretation of the event was (unnecessarily) malicious. Asked another way...
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| "One another" when an ordered series of events or stages is involved Posted: 29 Jul 2021 04:20 AM PDT
Why is it a "further" distinction? Doesn't a series of events imply more than two "events" and therefore more than two "entities"?
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| What would you call someone who rather not have something than have it with bad sides? Posted: 29 Jul 2021 04:32 AM PDT I wondered this when I was thinking about relationships but could apply to other situations. Let's say someone has a troubled relationship with their siblings so they'd rather not have them than put up with them. Or they ended up with a pet but they'd rather not have it and not deal with its responsibilities. Or they are assigned a project with good prospects but wouldn't want to do it because of risks. I was thinking more of apathetic than slothful. I thought picky or idealist but they're not quite right.  |
| Posted: 29 Jul 2021 10:04 AM PDT Voldemort is writing his name into the air.
Why through? I can't find the appropriate definition in dictionary. Please help me out.  |
| Phrasal verbs as hyphenated adjectives Posted: 29 Jul 2021 10:27 AM PDT So I recently had a question of how to translate a seemingly simple phrase which gave rise to a really puzzling dilemma. The phrase itself was "the eye which had been operated on", it was passive. However, the original language only used one single adjective + "eye", and I wanted to somehow retain that so as to not make the translation too wordy. One option was to simply say "the treated eye", which was OK. But I also wondered whether I could use "operate" as an adjective. Which led me to 2 options: "the operated eye" and "the operated-on eye". The latter seemed to be more suitable because we normally say that surgeons "operate on" an organ/limb/tumor/... and people have operations "on" parts of their bodies, so I ought to keep the preposition. The former sounded a little ambiguous, since "operate" could be confused with "manipulated, controlled" as in a "machine which is operated from a control panel". My question is twofold, I guess. Am I correct in thinking that phrasal verbs may be used as hyphenated phrasal adjectives and, if so, is doing so appropriate in this particular case?  |
| What's the meaning of the mentioned sentence? Posted: 29 Jul 2021 02:15 AM PDT
What is the meaning of the last line in this paragraph. It would be helpful if someone would make me understand the last line simply in context of the whole paragraph.  |
| How to say being ahead at the start Posted: 29 Jul 2021 09:07 AM PDT I am writing to a Professor as a prospective graduate student. I want to tell him that I will be one step ahead at the begging of my masters program since I have taken several graduate courses already. So my tone should convey that I am a promising candidate and should not be boastful. I want to tell him that by assessing this knowledge I will start my master thesis sooner and I would be more successful. I guess that there are good ways in English to state this point. I would be very grateful if anyone could help me to express it.  |
| Non-restrictive phrases are inessential, but are they nonarbitrary? [closed] Posted: 29 Jul 2021 04:08 AM PDT I need help understanding 'restrictive' phrases. It's well known that non-restrictive phrases are inessential to the meaning of the sentence because they
But does that mean that all non-restrictive phrases say something that is nonarbitrary? That seems, superficially, to be the exact opposite? I don't mean to suggest these examples are grammatically correct. I am just trying to show what I mean by 'non-arbitrary'. Neither that all of them are strictly speaking "nonrestrictive phrases", only that they are phrases that are not restrictive. A simple example:
'Susan' does not limit the meaning of 'sister' in the rest of the sentence, so 'Susan' likewise already has its referent fixed by the rest of the sentence, as well as I suppose context. What it says about my sister is nonarbitrary. Again:
This non-restrictive phrase does not limit meaning. What it says about the first sentence is nonarbitrary, because the first sentence already has its referent, and the phrase just adds that it was a quote. In effect I'm asking whether non-restrictive phrases have a non-arbitrary meaning due to the rest of the sentence, despite themselves being inessential to the sentence.  |
| Posted: 28 Jul 2021 11:01 PM PDT I am grappling with a sentence here, which is rather poetic in nature and is way beyond my intuitive knowledge of English. Please help! "From three attempts a single one affirmed the chance for success." The contextual meaning is that there were three attempts made and only one of them was successful. It was successful because the chance was affirmed. Is the sentence in question grammatically correct? Or can it be rephrased for compactness: "A single of three attempts affirmed the chance for success." Thank you!  |
| What word describes a musical instrument's native character? Posted: 29 Jul 2021 10:18 AM PDT (I asked this question in the music stack exchange at https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/54865/what-word-describes-an-instrument-s-native-character but since I am looking for a word I'll ask here too.) As a composer of Celtic-style tunes, I usually pick up my mandolin and noodle in a few keys that work well on a mando, like G, D, Am, Bm for example. I almost never play in Eb (=Cm), say, because without resorting to fully-fretted positions it's not "natural" for a mandolin. The word "affordance," as used in a user-interface way, has some bearing here: the way a mandolin is physically organized "affords" ease of use in some keys over others. (The affordance of a door handle is obvious: it says "pull me." A flat plate on a door says "push.") Now on a piano the layout, and how I play the instrument, is different from a mandolin. Whereas the mando is organized across four courses of strings arranged in fifths, and the hands have different jobs (picking and fretting), the piano is laid out in a linear array and both hands play notes. The "affordance" is different. It's much easier to play in Cm (and for me, D on a piano is sort of hard). If I compose a piece on piano and try to play it on mando, I am struck by how I would never have thought of it on a mando. Pick your instrument - a penny whistle is key-oriented and range-limited, so only certain types of tune easily fall under the fingers. Drums are a whole different kettle (no pun) of fish: you use sticks and much of your body to play. So here is the question: what word you would use to describe the instrument's native character? I have used "affordability" here but that only refers to a part of the approach to the instrument. For some reason the word "modality" comes to mind (not in the scales/modes sense) but I have not been able to support that guess. The word would be used like this: " Composing Irish tunes on a fiddle is easier than on a harmonium because the [?word?] of the instrument is more appropriate. Almost-candidates include words like: "feel," "character," "voice," "style," or "capability." This question is not just about finding the word. I think the whole concept of different instruments leading to different compositions is intriguing. Comments? Addendum: the word idiom was suggested on the companion site, which is close.  |
| The meaning of the phrase I'll wait you out Posted: 29 Jul 2021 05:09 AM PDT I heard this phrase in the TV show Grimm. Does it mean that I'll wait until you come out of the house?  |
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