Thursday, July 8, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Which conjunction has to be used for contrasting the sentences? Details provided in description

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 09:42 AM PDT

When I was speaking to an automobile enthusiast, I came across a situation where I couldn't express what I had in my mind about the kick-starter bikes.

I want to know the better conjunction to connect two clauses. The second clause has to be contrasted more than the first clause.

Clause 1: Sometimes the Kickback even from bikes with lower displacement could be more painful while kick-starting.

Clause 2: You could think how tremendously painful it could be when the bikes with higher displacements kickback while kick-starting.

Kickback means, a sudden forceful recoil of a kick lever used for kick-starting.

Which conjunction can be used to convey increase of contrast?

Can I say “red and blue A and B”? [closed]

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 08:25 AM PDT

If A is red, and B is blue, could I say "red and blue A and B" instead of "red A and blue B"?

Is there a way to describe group behaviour where everyone in the group thinks another member is going to do a task so nothing is accomplished?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 07:56 AM PDT

I feel as though there is probably a more elegant and succinct way to describe that kind of behaviour. Imagine a group of friends going to an event and everyone thought the other was bringing the tickets so no one did. There is no active avoidance of responsibility but also no active responsibility. Any ideas?

Which article should go before a specific game like cricket, football etc. Is it will be a, an or the [duplicate]

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 06:57 AM PDT

Which article should go before a specific game like cricket, football etc. Is it will be a, an or the.

Synonym for the word "cope" that is not more than 7 letters [closed]

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 06:46 AM PDT

Am looking for a short word that means similiar as "cope". To cope up or to stay on top of things.

Present simple tense vs Present progressive tense [closed]

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 05:51 AM PDT

I read books. I am reading books. What is the difference between them?

Off-of Combination

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 06:01 AM PDT

Not sure how to name this correctly, but there seems to be a trend of adding an "of" to phrasal verbs that ends in "off" and I'm wondering if that is, in fact, correct English?

Example from here:

I make a fortune off of them.

Shouldn't the correct usage be

I make a fortune off them.

What are alternative phrases or idioms to "only one part of the equation"?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 07:37 AM PDT

I am writing an article and trying to explain that people search for solutions on the wrong track. Instead, they have to see the whole story to the topic.

My idea was to say something like

"... is only one part of the equation".

Is there a better way to describe that achieving the topic/what my article is about requires another disregarded element?

What do you call someone who Stays on top of things such as being well informed about news, his appointments etc [duplicate]

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 04:13 AM PDT

What do you call someone who stays on top of things such as being well informed about news, his appointments etc. He is organized and his information about various things is readily available to him. What could we call him or what can we call something that makes him so?

Comma and semicolon usage for a memorial plaque

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 04:11 AM PDT

I'm trying to write the text for my father's memorial plaque, and am very limited by the character count set by the engraver, as there is only so much they can fit on the sign. My father was an immigrant and was very proud of how he arrived in the country we live in with '£3 in his pocket'. He was also much loved by all who knew him, so I wanted to incorporate both of those things into the memorial. I just wanted to check whether I need a comma in the text below:

Arrived in the UK with £3 in his pocket. Left this earth loved by all.

Should it actually be Left this earth, loved by all?

What is the meaning of 'too fond of fast horses'?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 06:40 AM PDT

In this sentence (from Noli Me Tangere by Jose P. Rizal),

The governor left his post; his successor had a reputation for justice, but, alas, did not stay in office for more than a few months; and his successor, in turn, was too fond of fast horses.

what is the meaning of the final highlighted part?

What is the meaning of this sentence "Oh, we are proud! He ain't above giving lessons, not him:" [closed]

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 03:04 AM PDT

  1. What is the meaning of "we are proud!"? Does it really mean "proud"? or "It is serious or big deal to me"?

  2. What is the meaning of " He ain't above giving lessons, not him"? Does it mean "He does not give lessons?" or "He is just in position of giving lessons" or "He is not in high position, so he will give lessons" or "He gives lessons"? It is so confusing.

  3. What's "not him"? English is quite difficult for me to understand, precisely.

Is informated a word?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 07:43 AM PDT

On Season 1 Ep 5 in the TV Show Good Omens, a US military soldier guarding a US base says:

I was not informated on any surprise inspection sir.

Clip of video here: https://streamable.com/l6acv6

Then another replied "Well, if you had it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?"

To my knowledge, it is not a subtitle mistake as the voice matches the subtitles exactly. The time stamp is at @40:24 - 40:26 (mm:ss), if anyone can watch the full episode.

I had never heard anyone say it before and it is not found in any dictionary. Is this some form of American military lingo?

Correct response to the assertion "You can be adamant"

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 08:29 AM PDT

There was a segment in a web-series wherein the dialogue was:

Male protagonist: You can be adamant! (In an exasperated tone)    Female protagonist: I can! (retorts the character)

I thought the response of the female protagonist was incomplete and should rather have been something of the sort

I certainly can be!

Is my misgiving founded or is her response correct and an expression of brevity as per the language in such situations?

EDIT: I should add to the question that I'm asking more from the point of how the response should be in a normal conversation rather than in a movie/play as the comments seem to be addressing.

Question about the word order [duplicate]

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 03:20 AM PDT

I know these two sentences are correct:

Europeans consider climate change to be the most serious problem facing the world.

Perhaps the most serious problem facing the environment is global warming.

But I really do not understand the grammar. I think the first sentence should be...

Europeans consider climate change to be the most serious problem the world is facing.

And the second one should be...

Perhaps the most serious problem the environment is facing is global warming.

Can anyone explain the reason?

What is "musset"?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 08:50 AM PDT

I came across the word "musset" in Gregory Maguire's Wicked--

Her green traveling gown with its inset panels of ochre musset suggested wealth, while the black shawl draping just so about the shoulders was a nod to her academic inclinations. (p. 84 in my edition)

Does anyone know what exactly the word refers to? It plainly has something to do with clothing, but what in particular? Is it just an invented word? It's not in the OED, and my Google searches led to naught, but I'm wondering if it might be a recondite technical term for something.

A better word than 'cathouse' for an outside shelter for 1 cat

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 08:29 AM PDT

Most of us who have gardens* and are fond of nature and animals have outside shelters for them...

  • birdhouse

  • dog house

  • green house

  • cat house?

'Cathouse' seems off to many Americans because of the usage as a slang term for brothel, and will probably draw a snicker or two..

I participate on Pets.SE, and can find only 1 reference to 'cat-house'

"Cattery" has been suggested on Wikipedia and Quora, but that sounds like a kennel for cats. In other words, similar to an 'aviary'.

'Shelter' sounds like a place for adoption of strays.

Is there a less-suggestive word for the house of a single cat, that works like 'doghouse'?

SWR:My cat lay comfortably dry inside her ______, watching the rain fall on the patio below her.

*My usage of garden here is more the European or Latin-American idea. Garden for Americans often evokes the image of tidy rows of vegetables ripening on the vine and close to hand of the home cook, or a bed of seasonal flowers. By way of contrast, for the rest of the English-speaking world , it usually indicates trees, flowers, bushes, grassy patches, etc.

The perfect environment for birds, rodents, and various creepy-crawlies...

In other words, paradise for a cat.

Is the sentence "just to help me if I'd paint" grammatically correct?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 07:02 AM PDT

So I was just listening to this song by Lana Del Rey and she goes:

"said he'd come back every May, just to help me if I'd paint"

I can't really make sense of the "help me if I'd paint" part because that would be: "help me if I would paint"

Why is it would? Why is it not just "help me if I paint"?

Where would the question marks fall within this poem?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 04:06 AM PDT

Can someone help me punctuate this line? It is poetry, which may not always follow the common rules of punctuation...

I asked myself is there such a place in the deepest part of the soul
where noone has dared to linger where deepest thoughts are kept below

Is metrics a synonym of scores?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 08:02 AM PDT

I would like to know if I can use score and metric interchangeably. I'm a software engineer, and I'm creating a product that will store conversion metrics (the level of conversion of a site's visitor), and read scores (word count, adverb percentage, sentiment of the text). Therefore, my product database has a conversion_metrics and a read_scores table. I would like to know if I can use conversion_scores or read_metrics. I unconscious named them, without much thinking, and now I got me thinking about it.

Is there a word for "pretending to ask?"

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 09:03 AM PDT

Is there a word for when you're asking someone something only to go through the motions and uphold social norms?
For instance, when you ask "Can I come in?" before just going in their house or whatever (in particular, you do not reasonably expect the answer to be "no," and they're also expected to go through the "routine" when they answer).

Can 2nd conditionals (unreal) have a guessing of the past situation (real)?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 06:07 AM PDT

Sentences (1) and (2) have the form of 2nd conditional, which is unreal at the time of utterance (In this text, the time is past, which is natural in grammar and usage in my intuition). However, some instructors (who explain the paragraph below) say that though (1) and (2) have the same sentence structure, (2) is interpreted as the possible past (real), which means 'Picasso' could have gotten warmer ~ or not and the author still doesn't know the two possibilities. But, I don't, cannot buy that. But they insist that the interpretation is possible, depending on its context. What do you think of this?

(1)If creators knew when they were on their way to fashioning a masterpiece, their work would progress only forward: they would halt their idea-generation efforts as they struck gold. But in fact, they backtrack, returning to versions that they had earlier discarded as inadequate. In Beethoven's most celebrated work, the Fifth Symphony, he scrapped the conclusion of the first movement because it felt too short, only to come back to it later. Had Beethoven been able to distinguish an extraordinary from an ordinary work, he would have accepted his composition immediately as a hit. When Picasso was painting his famous Guernica in protest of fascism, he produced 79 different drawings. Many of the images in the painting were based on his early sketches, not the later variations. (2)If Picasso could judge his creations as he produced them, he would get consistently "warmer" and use the later drawings. But in reality, it was just as common that he got "colder."

Whats a word for someone who distrusts laymen and believes they always need to leave things to the professionals

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 03:04 AM PDT

I'm looking for a pejorative word or phrase for a professional who distrusts the abilities of laymen to do things for themselves, and advocates inaction even when it is an emergency and within the person's capabilities. . A "leave it to the professionals" type of attitude, taken to an unhealthy extreme.

Similar to this question, but on the side of the professional.

The best I can think of is a "professional elitist", but that really fails to capture the idea precisely.

Imagine an EMT who recommends against doing CPR, because "you'll mess it up. Just call 911 and wait for us". Or a firefighter who advises against using a fire extinguisher. Or a cop who advises against ever defending oneself in fight: just call 911 and wait for us to come help you (granted that could be potentially be more reasonable depending on the situation).

Usage of 'directed to'

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 05:07 AM PDT

Is it correct to state that a text is 'directed to' children, or would a different choice of words be preferable?

A word for someone who notices things very keenly

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 05:05 AM PDT

In the context below:

Let's say that your mom is asking if you have a boyfriend and you really don't want to talk about that, you start to complain about the food in dinner in order to shift the subject/topic. Unfortunately, she ___ your attempt and says: "Don't try to change the subject, you got to answer my question first."

Edit: The context above is only a suggestion and you don't need to fit the sentence structure.

What's a good word to describe that behavior?

"The" before adjectives

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 09:46 AM PDT

I'm a bit confused about this.

Which example is the right one?

From all the fellow writers, who was the best?

From all fellow writers, who was the best?

Is there a reason why "the" should be used before the adjective in this case? Is there a reason for it not to be there? Thanks.

Referring to 'states' of 'the United States' as 'their' or 'its' [closed]

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 08:51 AM PDT

  • When I am writing about the United States and refer to "the states", do I say:

"states began using their police powers"

or

"states began using its police powers"?

Can 'post' and 'after' used interchangeably?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 09:01 AM PDT

I notice few colleagues use 'post' almost everywhere. Today one of them said 'lets meet up post noon' and I thought shouldn't it be 'afternoon'? I could be okay with 'post lunch' but somehow 'post noon' felt very awkward.

Has "dilemma" ever been restricted to two options?

Posted: 08 Jul 2021 07:17 AM PDT

I was surprised to discover my dictionary had this entry for dilemma:

a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, esp. equally undesirable ones

The notion of dilemma meaning two or more flies against what I was taught about the word. The very idea of a false dilemma is specifically based on the number two.

Has my dictionary merely updated its definition to encapsulate the many people who use dilemma for more than two equal choices? Or was someone in my youth being unnecessarily pedantic?
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