Friday, July 30, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

the meaning "to be money" in "He is money, this Elf King" [closed]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 09:11 AM PDT

In the video The King of Wood and Stone/ Part 1 (HD) Lee pace says the following: "He is money, this Elf King". What does it mean "to be money"? (timestamp THRANDUIL - 11:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p45-rxpNVg

Does A bit + adj sound right?

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 08:19 AM PDT

I think this isn't grammatically correct but rather a thing used in a daily language. Can

For a bit less work, we skipped that part...

be the same as

We skipped that part to not do a very small job/work/task.

My most concern comes from the 'a bit less' part as it doesn't seem so right to me. Is it okay to say something like that?

the most of vs the greatest number of / the greatest amount [closed]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 07:02 AM PDT

Let's say if there were 3 cities.

  • 1,000 people live in city A.
  • 2,000 people live in city B.
  • 3,000 people live in city C.

May I say

  • C is the city which has the most people
  • C is the city which has the greatest number of people
  • C is the city which has the most population

How is the word "wrangle" used in Europe?

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 05:59 AM PDT

I'm starting a new online business in the US, and hope to attract customers in Europe as well. I'm thinking about using the word wrangler in the name of the business. The meaning I'm intending is "to gather, tame, subdue, organize", etc. In the US, this is a common usage, as far as I know (correct?).

But in Europe, is the word wrangler commonly used this way? Or is it used mainly to mean arguing/disputing? And would English-speaking Europeans not quickly/easily understand this "gathering" meaning?

Thank you!

The usage of articles with the word right and only [closed]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 05:54 AM PDT

Very often, the article THE goes with the words RIGHT and ONLY. When is it OK to use A?

Examples:

  • This is a difficult question. Is there a right answer to it? (I think it's correct)

  • This is a difficult question. Is there the/an only one right answer to it? (Not sure)

  • This is a difficult question. However, there is a right answer to it. (I think it's correct)

  • This is a difficult question. However, there is the/an only one right answer to it. (not sure)

  • This is a difficult question. There is not a right answer to it. (I think it's correct)

  • This is a difficult question. There is not the/an only one right answer to it. (not sure)

Is this sentence grammatically correct in terms of the agreement of the subjects of the two parts of the sentence?

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 07:00 AM PDT

I found this sentence in a publication of a world-renowned institution. Is it grammatically correct in terms of the agreement of the subjects of the two parts of the sentence?

A reserved boy in his twenties, the reserve could never have been attributed to lack of confidence.

Verb agreement when using To Infinitive after ordinal numbers as subject

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 09:25 AM PDT

I know that after ordinal numbers (the first, the second etc.) we can use to-infinitive clause. E.g:

Ethan was the last person to understand the joke.

My questions is when the above construction acts as the subject of a sentence. Consider this:

Plant scientists have been trying for years to genetically modify flowers for aesthetic purposes. The first to go on sale were blue carnations produced by Florigene of Melbourne, Australia, in 1996.

What is the criteria for choosing were after the infinitive? (is it in agreement with the first or the first [flowers])

The sentence is taken from: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126952-000-valentines-day-special-say-it-with-flowers/#ixzz726Lu0bW6

a hand caressed a cheek

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 04:57 AM PDT

Nothing had been forgotten: alibis, chance, possible errors. From that hour on, every moment had its job carefully attributed. The ruthless double review was interrupted just so that a hand caressed a cheek. It was beginning to get dark. Even those caresses that entangled the lover's body as if wanting to retain and dissuade him, abominably drew the figure of another body that needed to be destroyed.

These lines are from 'Continuity of Parks' by Cortazar. Can anyone help me understand the meaning of the line i n bold?

Thank you.

Where can I find numbers for frequencies of digraphs?

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 05:03 AM PDT

I was wondering what was the frequencies of English digraphs, both vowels and consonants. Googling it gave me frequencies of letter combinations, but not of digraphs, is there anywhere where I could find them?

Working with X is/are fun? [closed]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 03:48 AM PDT

Is "Working with solutions is fun" or "Working with solutions are fun" correct?

I think it's the first one but I am unsure.

Meaning of "Gets you by"? [closed]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 03:37 AM PDT

What's the meaning of the phrasal verb "gets you by"?

Is it grammatically correct to say, " I would let her know that you would join her "? [migrated]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 02:54 AM PDT

I want to know if it's grammatically correct to say, " I would let her know that you would join her "

Can you say this after asking someone if they would like to accompany another person out and they agree to do so.

Serial number/id/reference/label as noun postmodifier?

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 09:49 AM PDT

There are so many novel usages of references, IDs, keys, codes:

If we substitute variable a in the equation (3) with string "ABC" at the address 0x801234 as pointed by Smith [SM2005] we might crash our database Prometheus located in the zone us-west-2.

We might fail test 3 in the trial AA5.

Please open book 2 paragraph 14 section 3.

I could not find grammar describing the topic, particular:

  • what part of speech is it? Aren't they determiners?
  • why does it come after the noun (street addresses usually use numbers as premodifiers, though we say November 7, 2021)?
  • as reference/label/code identify an entity I see no reason for use of definite article...

What is 'social end'? [closed]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 01:36 AM PDT

Wealth distribution for social ends such as healthcare and education is seen as a basic societal right in Denmark.

What is the meaning of 'social end' here? I have never encountered this before.

Present perfect vs simple past in main and relative clause [duplicate]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 02:36 AM PDT

I would like to ask if the following sentences have different meanings. lately I've been overthinking about tenses which I've been using fluently my whole life. Specifically present perfect

Context: Say I was talking to a friend about what happened this month. It was a pretty boring month, so I just tell him about something surprising that happened: A happy one-off encounter with a stranger.

Friend: "Has anything interesting happened to you this month?
Me: "Well, nothing much. Oh, but I met a guy at the university who has told me my hair looks fantastic"

Does this strongly differ in meaning from just saying:

"but I met a guy at the university who told me my hair looks fantastic"

My own deduction weakly says something along the lines that "has told" emphasizes that I am still happily surprised about that, whereas just "told me" is more neutral and focuses on the fact that I met a guy (who just so happened to also compliment me). I guess the present perfect could also technically mean that he told it to me sometime after I met him.

Furthermore, this might warrant its own question, but does the meaning change if "met" is changed to "have met". i.e.

"but I have met a guy at the university who has told me my hair looks fantastic"

I think this might imply that we kept meeting/chatting later. Is there a preference for present perfect or simple past for events that happened "this month"? This source would suggest so (if you scroll down to "Time Expressions with Present Perfect")

English is not my native language, and in my own language I would probably use the simple past + simple past equivalent. However, in English present perfect is used for experiences and/or indefinite time (such as "this month"), which makes me wonder whether it should be used here.

Should "will" be used before each verb in an "if" construction that makes multiple following-up predictions?

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 01:23 AM PDT

Which one is correct?

  1. If Chelsea gets him, he'll stay there for about 2 years, mainly warm the bench and then will return to Villa.

  2. If Chelsea gets him, he'll stay there for about 2 years, mainly warm the bench and then return to Villa.

  3. If Chelsea gets him, he'll stay there for about 2 years, mainly will warm the bench and then will return to Villa.

Grammar of the yet in the sentence [closed]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 12:24 AM PDT

I am reading a topic on The Economist, and crossing to this sentence:

Yet legislation encoding this deal has yet to be written, much less passed

I usually see the usage of yet as the contradiction, when putting at the beginning of a sentence, as the following example:

It was raining hard. Yet she didn't put on her wellington boots.

Yet on the first sentence seems not to follow this convention.

A word or an idiom for not wanting to look into something else to not get sidetracked [duplicate]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 09:31 AM PDT

Example:

In this article about bugs I focus primarily on 7-legged bugs and purposely not consider spiders as it would require me to [look into and explain the details I don't want to here] them which is not the point here.

In a way, it's close to to dirty one's hands with smh but without a negative connotation.

I'm quite confident there's a word for it, but I just can't remember it. I think to dip into is close, but too casual (slang-ish), I'm looking for something for more formal writing.

When a hero says 'enough already, you are asking too much of me'

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 07:10 AM PDT

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Henry V- William Shakespeare

...was cited numerous times by British officers during WW I and WW II exhorting their troops into battle; it usually resulted in mass death.

Is there a phrase that indicates the rebellion of the troops against such... yet another battle?

[I am reminded of Achilles, Ajax, and Hector for some reason.]

We have seen recently during the 2021 Olympic games top athletes (such as Simone Biles) saying that they are battling heat, humidity, and their own personal issues to drop out of an event.

No one should question the motives of these people; they are international models of emulation.

In defense of these people, is there a phrase that expresses the idea...

"I have done the best I can; that is far far more than most mortals could do"?

Relative pronoun "whose"

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 03:50 AM PDT

Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 3, page 637 reads

If he start game on one man's lands, and pursue it to those of another, ...it is neither the property of the man on whose lands it started, nor of him on whose it is killed, but belongs to the killer...

enter image description here

I. Interrogative uses (direct and dependent) 1. what person's.

https://www.oed.com/oed2/00285120

Is this use grammatical today?

Would it sound better to substitute "of whom" or "what person's" for whose here?

Is it rude to say "damn it"?

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 08:59 AM PDT

The context: Not connected with anything. Just sharing a feeling when nobody asked, like:

"Damn it, I love ice cream."

Is it rude to write or say it in UK? Australia and New Zealand? USA?

I would like to express in English what someone might say in Brazilian Portuguese:

"Caramba/que droga/que coisa, eu gosto de ..."

possibly as a conversation starter.

Etymology of the phrase "fine art"?

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 02:52 AM PDT

I'm reading in a book:

A work of fine art is "fine" not because it is "refined" or "finished," but because it is an end (finis, Latin, means end) in itself.

Can anyone corroborate that? Multiple online dictionaries seem to disagree and sites like Wikipedia don't even bother with the etymology of the phrase... 🤔

What is the name for a video that is shown as a preamble to an interview on a talk show?

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 08:07 AM PDT

In TV talk shows, what is the name for a video clip that is shown as a preamble to an interview? I am working in the Netherlands, where they call this an 'instart'.

Synonyms of the "Recent" to avoid appearing twice in a sentence

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 12:32 AM PDT

I am constructing a sentence which uses the word "Recent" twice.

The sentence is "the land use changes in recent years are greatly affecting the recent climate."

I would like to avoid one "recent" in the above sentence.

More of a/an/the something than something

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 02:05 AM PDT

I would like to know more about this expression: More of a/an something than something.

As far as I know, it's usually used when we refer to things that are preceded by articles such as a and an. For example, we can say "He's more of a singer than a dancer", which means that he's more like a singer than a dancer.

However, I would like to know if we can use it when the words we are describing are preceded by "the", which is also an article.

For example, can we use "The cause of the disaster was more of the operator than the machine itself"?

Any opinions are welcome.

Thanks in advance!

Cultural Backlash Meaning

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 03:03 AM PDT

Backlash being strong public reaction against something, what exactly is cultural backlash? Googling it is not that helpful.

I was reading an article that contains the sentence:

The cultural backlash to America's financial system in the wake of the Great Recession brought the topic of widening inequality into the mainstream. Ten years after the crisis, income and wealth inequality between the top 1% and the rest of the country are both still rising.
—"US inequality sparked second Gilded Age and revealed defining struggle", Business Insider

Plural noun or singular noun + possessive

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 09:03 AM PDT

When the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868 —150 years ago this Monday — it closed the door on schemes that aimed to make the U.S. a white man's country. (source)

I wonder why it is not "a white men's country". We often speak of men's clothes and men's room. Consider:

This is the only large dogs' shelter in the area.
This is the only large dog's shelter in the area.

Which one sounds more natural or idiomatic?

"Along with" but also "and"

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 01:07 AM PDT

Here is the original sentence:

In early 1992, Wayne Calloway, PepsiCo's chairman and CEO, along with the presidents of each of the company's restaurants, and Ken Stevens, the senior vice president of strategic planning, was (they WERE evaluating?) evaluating two opportunities..

I think this is wrong because there is an "and" after the "along with" prepositional phrase.

So, if we break down the sentence:

In early 1992, {Wayne Calloway, PepsiCo's chairman and CEO}, {along with the presidents of each of the company's restaurants}, {and Ken Stevens, the senior vice president of strategic planning}, was evaluating two opportunities...

The "and" seems to leave us with the noun structure of: "Wayne Calloway, PepsiCo's chairman and CEO and Ken Stevens, the senior vice president of strategic planning were evaluating two opportunities...?

Thoughts?

continue [through] to

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 05:01 AM PDT

I'm wondering what contribution the word "through" makes to the following sentence:

The trend continued [through] to April.

How does the above differ from the following?

The trend continued to April.

The trend continued until April.

I'd appreciate your help.

What is the right preposition after “provide”? [closed]

Posted: 30 Jul 2021 07:18 AM PDT

Could you tell me which is the right preposition after "provide"?

to provide.... activities and situations"
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