Sunday, July 4, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Express numbers in words

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 09:46 AM PDT

I want to say " $10,000 engagement rings" in words ?????

1- Ten thousand dollars engagement rings.

2- Ten thousand dollar-engagement rings.

3- Engagement rings of ten thousand dollars

There will + simple verb [migrated]

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 07:33 AM PDT

On the other hand, the irremediable problems brought about by this unmanageable growth should be highlighted as well. First and foremost, the environmental cost is a major concern in these densely populated areas. That is, the higher the number of citizens and vehicles in a particular city, the greater chances of emitting immense amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere. Take the unimaginable volume of carbon dioxide emissions released by thousands of daily commuters and countless factories; there will eventually take their toll on the environment.

Is it right to say There will eventually take their toll on the environment? What is the grammar behind it?

How to Study Improving In-depth Reading Comprehension? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 06:49 AM PDT

There are multiple datasets for machine comprehension tasks such as SQuAD. However, most of the questions are straightforward. One can find the answers easily by using the find feature of the browser to look for the question keywords in the passage.

I'd appreciate it if you let us know about standardized in-depth reading comprehension tests for either human or machine that are generalizable. By generalizable, I mean they include a broad range of disciplines and academic levels and are not specifically designed for a target population.

I thought of GRE reading comprehension but was not able to find any study indicating that GRE reading comprehension questions are standardized or generalizable.

Where can I find a comprehensive list of words with a specific feature such as the 'o_e' split digraph? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 05:19 AM PDT

I am looking for a full list of all words which have the 'o_e' split digraph (or in more simple terms, 'o' with 'magic e'), but so far I have been unable to find anything comprehensive and all of them only have a few examples.

If I could have a list that contains all words with long 'o' possibly sorted into how it is spelt ('oo', 'o_e', 'oa' and just 'o' on its own), that would be even better, or some website which generates lists of all words with a specific feature.

If it is of any help, I am trying to compile a list of all words with long 'o' which were long 'a' in old English, with or without the obvious ones which are spelt with 'oa'.

How to pronounce the "bunched /r/" sound?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 05:19 AM PDT

I don't live in English-speaking country. I try to learn English on my own. I am interested in aquisition the General American accent (GA). My question is about the American /r/ consonant ([ɹ]) and the American r-colored vowels ([ɚ]).

I have a problem with realization of the /r/ English phonem. I know that exist 10-11 or even more options to articulate this sound, but the retroflex and the bunched (aka molar, retracted, dorsal) versions are the most famous. I have learned the retroflex version of this sound. I am OK with the [ɻ], alveolar and postalveolar realizations.
enter image description here

Now my main interest is the bunched /r/. I have tried many times to pronounce this for 3-4 weeks but I can't. I went through all the videos and articles about this topic that I found on the Internet. I have seen the MRI. The tongue tip must not be curl and lift up, the tip of the tongue should be located at the bottom or just neutral. Each time I try the tip my tongue wants to go up. If I hold the tip of my tongue and don't lift it up then I'm making completely different sound.

bunched r 1

So, how to pronounce the clear "bunched /r/" without lifting the tip?

What I've tried: I looked at my mouth with a flashlight in a mirror, I used a pencil, I used a spoon.

Russian language is my native tongue. I don't have speech defects in my native language.

Melville's usage of dash and semicolon in Moby Dick

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 09:19 AM PDT

As a non-native speaker of the English language, and to some extent a non-avid reader of English novels, I don't quite understand why Melville is using semicolons and dashes as he does in the following passage of Moby Dick:

Besides, passengers get sea-sick—grow quarrelsome—don't sleep of nights—do not enjoy themselves as much, as a general thing;—no, I never go as a passenger; nor though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook.

Specifically,

  1. is it an artistic choice to use the semicolons instead of full stops? Wouldn't

    [...]I never go as a passenger. Nor though I am something of salt,...

    work as well?

  2. Why use dashes after the semicolon? To my knowledge dashes are a great way to express another related thought in middle or at the end of a sentence. Therefore the syntax ;— feels a bit alien to me.

Origin of stating indirect object by sentence structure and no pronoun

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 09:47 AM PDT

Background

Consider the following from The Punisher season 2, with names replaced to avoid spoilers:

― Where is Donna, Jim? You tell me where she is, maybe I can pull your ass out of the fire with the NYPD. [Pause.] If we hand Jefferson Donna, then maybe he lets the rest slide.
― And what about Donna? We're just gonna hand her over too?
― Has she done you any favours lately?

It is clear from this, and the absolutely clear communication both between the characters and between the drama and the viewer, that the preposition may be omitted if this specific sentence structure (namely IO before O) is present. Here another example, using both a common and a proper noun:

― Why won't you hand Billy the flower pot?
― Because if I hand my brother the flower pot, he'll break it.

The above is also possible if rewritten using pronouns:

― Why won't you hand him the flower pot?
― Because if I hand him the flower pot, he'll break it.

In both cases, we have an S–V–IO–DO structure.

Other languages

Interestingly, the same is possible in e.g. Norwegian:

― Kvifor gjev du honom ikkje blomsterkrukka?
― Av di at viss eg gjev honom blomsterkrukka, kjem han til å knuse henne.

To make the point, I chose the now obsolete han/honom / ho/henne declinations instead of han/han / ho/ho. The same in Bokmål:

― Hvorfor gir du ham ikke blomsterkrukka?
― Fordi at hvis jeg gir ham blomsterkrukka […].

It also works in German:

― Warum gibst du ihm nicht den Blumenkrug?

It appears to be something common to Germanic languages, from what I can tell, but unlike German, neither English nor Norwegian (nor Swedish, nor Danish) decline nouns (in writing) anymore. (Yes, some dialects of Norwegian still preserve the nominative/accusative/dative differentiation (skog, skojinnj, skoja), but this is no longer part of written Norwegian, so that is besides the point.) The only ways to clearly express who the subject, direct object and indirect object are in a sentence, is by using prepositions where needed, or by a fixed sentence structure.

A sentence such as 'Billy the Man gave a flower' may be poetic, and with the stress we can add in speech it is obvious who is doing the action to whom, and even whether we are dealing with only a single person or two. In writing it is uncertain: Is it a subject called 'Billy the Man' who is giving a flower to someone we do not know? Or a subject called Billy giving the indirect object 'the Man' (a mysterious character indeed) a flower? Or is the Man the subject giving Billy the flower? The sentence would be perfectly clear were it instead phrased as 'Billy gave the Man a flower' or 'The Man gave Billy a flower', or if we used prepositions (to the Man; to Billy).

Question

Given that this is English SE, my question should be focused on English: How and when did this specific sentence structure – that is: where the direct object and indirect object switch places when omitting the indirect object preposition – come to be? Is this a modern invention, such as proliferation in the usage of continuous aspect? Or was this a common practice inherited from when English still was inflected? I am very curious to learn. Also, it would be interesting to know whether there are any important differences in the areas where English is a mother tongue, e.g. Britain and Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, India, and Hong Kong.

Notes

Somewhat relevant are these questions:

A word, gesture or expression for a confident "shrug"

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 09:44 AM PDT

I am trying to look for a word, gesture or expression that represents a state of confident not knowing. So far I am using a shrug for this but when used often it starts to come off as very apathetic which I definitely don't want. I have found gestures for being confused, uncertain etc but they don't quite fit because they don't capture the vibe of knowing confidently that you don't know the answer. Consider when being questioned and you want to make it very clear that you are certain you don't know the answer, not that you couldn't care less. The only thing I have thought of so far is a head scratch but this again doesn't communicate much certainty.

Example 1:

The policeman looked sternly down at John, "Mr Smith, where was Nigel between 4 and 6pm on Sunday evening?"

John shrugged, "I swear I don't know officer, I was at a work function until 7pm that night."

Example 2:

"Do you still love me John?" asked Mrs Smith.

John shrugged, "Honestly, I don't know anymore."

What caused the changes in pronunciation of the hard "G" in "Los Angeles"?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 06:10 AM PDT

I know there was a long debate about whether "Los Angeles" should be pronounced like the English (soft-G, as in "jelly") or the Spanish (heavy-H as in "Jose"), and given the history of the city, that division seems quite natural and inevitable. The English version eventually won, and except among Spanish speakers it is now the standard pronunciation.

There was once heated debate over how to pronounce "Los Angeles." The Spanish pronunciation of the name has long been "Loce AHN-heh-less." Yet, non-Spanish speaking Angelenos seemed to prefer the harder-sounding anglicized version "Loss ANN-ju-less." The anglicized version was adopted, in 1934, by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.
— Pronouncing Los Angeles

In many films from the 1940s and 1950s though, the city's name is frequently pronounced a third way, with a hard-G (as in "gelding" or "Geller").

But I can't find any reason for this pronunciation, with the hard-G, so when and why did the hard-G version originate, and when and why did it disappear?

"Show & Shine and Dyno" VS "Show Shine and Dyno"

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 02:51 AM PDT

I am in need to settle a grammatical argument at my workplace. We are holding a car show/dyno testing event.

Part of the name I was given is "Show & Shine and Dyno" Show & Shine is often used as a Noun in the community much like the word "Fair". But from what I understand when you add the word "Dyno"; as in Dyno Testing, "Show & Shine" can no longer be treated as a singular noun and instead becomes to separate verbs. Making the statement grammatically incorrect, As it then reads "Show and Shine and Dyno". The other argument is arguing that "Show & Shine" stays as a noun.

Does this sentence conveys the message of awareness of coronavirus and being alert? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 03:07 AM PDT

In India, the lockdown is kind of ended. It's still there but most of the things are allowed but precautions. That doesn't mean coronavirus cases are decreasing in India.

Basically, I want to say that it's not over. We must still be alert, and follow rules and regulations and don't become careless by doing unnecessary things like roaming on roads, malls etc. unless very necessary.

Here's the sentence:

It's time to be defensive, not aggressive. I've used these words from Cricket, to relate it with cricket.

(In cricket, when you're defensive, there are less chances of you getting out, but when you're aggressive, there are more chances that you might get out)

So does it convey the mentioned thing?

What are the specific parts of eating utensils called? [closed]

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 09:43 AM PDT

A knife has a handle and a blade. A spoon has a handle and a... Bowl? A fork has a handle and... Spikes? Prongs?

I guess this can be extended to more esoteric cutlery such as sporks.

What are the differences between "what is with", "what is up with" and "what is wrong with"?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 06:05 AM PDT

I am watching the drama called Friends at the moment and many times actors used to say one of them. I think it seems like that those expressions are little bit similar to each other.

Please, tell me how those expressions are different.

Thank you in advance.

What’s another phrase for....pushed to the limits? going through great adversity?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 09:31 AM PDT

i want to say "the protagonist of movie X goes through so much, i love movies where the protagonist is......"

there's a phrase that i had forgotten that was on the top of my tongue, no it's not "pushed to the limit", it's another phrase with a similar meanining....meanining the protagonist goes through hell, is beaten down to his knees, etc

i know i'm not being helpful with my examples lol but i can't explain it another way, but it's a popular phrase that i had forgotten that means...."going through s**t" lol

Is that an "r" in "worship" in a text from 1591?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 06:52 AM PDT

I was trying to see how the Spanish word merced was translated into English in the 16th century, when I found this entry in a dictionary from 1591 by Richard Percyvall:

worship

I understand that the second English word is worship, but that "r" is written in a different way from the r's in curtesie and pleasure. In a dictionary of Medieval English I found that worship was indeed a valid form for the word by then, but there were also other forms such as wurðescipe and wrþsipe, so I wonder if I am properly transliterating the word.

So, is that really an r in worship or is it another different character?

Help finding a word that means "made tangible"

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 04:54 AM PDT

I know there is a word for this, but I can't figure it out. I think it sounds like "mortalized". It means "brought into existence" in a tangible way.

For example, the Iliad and the Odyssey were just stories before Homer wrote them down. He _______ them.

Thank you so much!

It's not anything like "published". It specifically refers to something that was previously an oral tradition or unwritten, and finally someone _____ them.

What’s so floppy about floppy disks?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 09:22 AM PDT

While reading through Etymology of the use of "Drive" to refer to a digital storage medium and its various mentions of floppy disks, it occurred to me that, while drive is in origin a reasonably good and logical word to use for digital storage media, floppy isn't really a very apt adjective to describe thin, magnetic disks encased in flexible plastic cases.

I understand (or I suppose I should say assume) the reason these were described with an adjective in that general ballpark is that they are in general quite a bit softer than their contemporary counterparts: not only is the magnetic disk itself so thin that it is easily bendable, the plastic case itself (especially the 8" ones) is also not very rigid and can easily be bent and broken.

What I don't understand is why floppy in particular was chosen.

I'm just about young enough that I've only ever practically worked with 3 ½" floppy disks myself, but I have handled (and disassembled) a few of the old 8" disks that Wikipedia says were the first of their kind, and while it's true that the magnetic disk is softish and easy to bend, on the admittedly few occasions where I've taken them apart, even the disk inside was still rigid enough that I would never describe it as floppy. If you hold it out horizontally, it may bend down a good deal just from gravity, but it doesn't just flap and flop around like truly floppy objects like a crocheted doily or a piece of paper would.

Considering the wealth of descriptive adjectives in English, why did the developers of the early floppy disks (or whoever first thought up the name) choose the particular adjective floppy to describe them, rather than one of the many arguably more accurate adjectives like soft, pliant, bendy/bendable, etc.? Were early, pre-release versions of the magnetic disks perhaps made from an even softer material that did in fact flop loosely about, rather than just bending easily? Or was someone not very big on semantic distinctions and just liked the word 'floppy'?

What's so specifically floppy about floppy disks?

Etymology of the use of "Drive" to refer to a digital storage medium

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 09:06 AM PDT

When did the word "drive" begin to be used to refer to a digital storage medium (e.g. disc drive, hard drive, USB drive), and why was this term selected?

Cross-link to related earlier question: "Hard disk" vs. "Hard drive" vs. "Hard disk drive"

What is the word for always YES (100%) or always NO (0%), never in-between

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 09:17 AM PDT

For example:

1) In statistics, this attribute will always either be 0% or 100%, never in-between.

2) The boundary is either safe or destroyed, because there is never a state where it is only 'slightly leaking'.

3) The rash either itches or does not. It can't itch a little. That would still be an itch.

What word can we use to describe this attribute?

White Noise: Why White?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 06:47 AM PDT

I'm always surprised when I hear the term white noise.

White noise itself sounds a little more "evil" than anything else, I would almost expect it to be called black noise.

  • Why is white noise called white noise?

What’s a “handegg”?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 07:36 AM PDT

What's a handegg?

NOTE: This question is primarily related to the etymology of a compound noun which is not in The Dictionary.

There is a hat this year called "Handegg", given out for a posting that reaches a score of +7. But here's the problem: the word handegg does not occur in the Oxford English Dictionary! Neither does hand-egg nor hand egg.

Given that absence, I would like to know:

  1. What is exact etymology and history of handegg as documented by reputable scholarly sources?

  2. What is the primary sense of handegg, and are there any auxiliary senses or attendant connotations?

  3. Is handegg a word used in only one region or sociolect, or is it a word that most native speakers of English the whole wide world around would reasonably be expected know?

  4. Is handegg an inventive substitution for some other, better-known term?

  5. If handegg has a primary sense that is not shall we say "off-color", does the word also some sort of double entendre whereby it also means something risqué?

Although that looks like five questions, it really is only one. To be accepted, only the first question needs answering. The others are just elaborations on the first.

Background: I'm asking because I kept reading handegg as handbag, which I genuinely thought it was until only a couple minutes ago when I was disabused of this misreading, but that only brought new mysteries. In the accent of Green Bay, Wisconsin, bag and egg can seem to have the same vowel due to the bag–beg merger, so maybe this is how I misread it.

Comparative adjectives cannot have -er ending [closed]

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 07:31 AM PDT

Questions on the use of lesser have appeared on here before, but I was reading a book on grammar which states the following (I omitted parts to keep it brief, but I retained what I think are the important parts):

"Adjectives which gave a comparative or superlative signification do not admit the addition of ... the terminations, er, est ... the following examples break this rule:"

It then lists examples. Here is the one I am confused by: "From these various causes, which in greater or lesser degree, affected every individual in the colony, the indignation of the people became general."

The book sets "lesser" in italics, suggesting this is in error, yet my search on-line doesn't seem to yield any issue with the use of lesser. I found questions discussing the use of less versus the use of lesser, with it being argued that lesser is used for 'quality'. Here, I assume that 'less' is more appropriate.

My questions are as follows:

Should 'less' replace 'lesser' in the phrase "greater or lesser degree"?

Is the book claiming that 'lesser' is not a word?

What’s the meaning of “fee-simple titles”?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 09:21 AM PDT

What's the meaning of fee-simple titles in:

Late in the nineteenth century, Mexicans, whose claim to their land was based on royal decrees of the Spanish Crown (rather than the fee-simple titles familiar to North Americans), were confronted by shrewd traders.

What other words can be used instead of "hideable"?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 07:22 AM PDT

I'm trying to describe the scenario whereby something can be "hidden". I can use "hideable" however I wonder if there's a more eloquent term than "hideable"?

What does Pope Francis “called out him (Pope Emeritus Benedict) on it” mean?

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 08:12 AM PDT

There was the following sentence in the article titled "Pope Francis tells Pope Benedict to stop rolling his eyes in meetings" in May 2nd New Yorker magazine:

Pope Emeritus Benedict's return to the Vatican began on a sour note today as the current Pope, Francis, reprimanded him for rolling his eyes sarcastically during meetings, observers said.

The trouble started when the former Pope showed up at a meeting that "Benedict wasn't even invited to," a Vatican source said. After about ten minutes of suffering through Benedict's sighing and eye-rolling, Francis "totally called him out on it," the source said, adding, "What Benedict was doing was totally disrespectful. Plus, he is supposed to be retired, so he shouldn't have been wearing his Pope costume."

Though Oxford English Dictionary defines "call someone out" as

  1. summon someone to deal with an emergency or to do repairs

  2. order or advise workers to strike.

  3. (archaic) challenge someone to a duel,

none of the above definitions seems to fit to "Francis 'totally called him out on it.'"
There is no entry of the idiom, "call someone out" in either Cambridge or Merriam Webster English Dictionary.

It looks like the phrase, "Pope Francis "totally called him out on it" to mean he was totally upset with Benedict's presence accompanied with exaggerated gestures during the meeting, but I'm not sure. What does this sentence and idiom,'call sb out on stg' mean?

"Overrode" vs "Overridden"

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 04:06 AM PDT

I got into an argument about the sentence "Have you overrode SomeThingamajig?"

I thought that "have overrode" is incorrect, and should be "overrode" or "have overridden", or perhaps "did override".

However, I was told that in some contexts, "have overrode" is appropriate.

Is "Have you overrode SomeThingamajig?" correct?

When is is appropriate to say "have overrode"?

"I'm home" or "I'm at home"

Posted: 04 Jul 2021 04:05 AM PDT

The second form looks more correct to me, but the first expression is present in several titles of movies and songs. Which form is preferable?
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)