Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

What is a verb called that requires an adverbial complement?

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 10:40 AM PDT

A transitive verb is one that has (requires?) an object. What is a verb called if it requires an adverbial complement? For example:

We are staying in a hotel. from Wikipedia

Here, in a hotel is non-optional. It is an adverbial complement of the verb stay. Is there a name for such verbs which require adverbial complements?

what is the best combination of improving knowledge and behaviour in phrase? [closed]

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 09:42 AM PDT

what would be the best sythex for the following phrase:

  1. Improvement of/improving oral health knowledge and behaviour.
  2. Improvement of/improving knowledge and oral health behaviour.
  3. Improvement of/improving knowledge and behaviour of oral heath.

What is the word for disingenuous fame chaser? (Different word than sellout) [duplicate]

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 09:22 AM PDT

I'm searching for the word that means sellout, or maybe it means the action of selling out. I couldn't find it on a thesaurus. It's a bit of an urbandictionary type of word, commonly used to describe disingenuous grifters.

example sentence usage (although I can't remember if it's a verb, noun, or adjective):

That guy really panders to his audience for money. He is a sellout. Yeah, he's a _____.

synonyms: grifter, sellout, panderer

Is it grammatically correct to except something without it being part of the original group? [closed]

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 09:01 AM PDT

In Arabic, it is allowed to say for instance:

All the students left the room except the teacher.

So, the teacher is put after an "except" even though he is not one of the students. It's probably a bit of an obscure usage even in Arabic.

Does it exist in English in some obscure rule or usage?

What is the number of the verb in "We require that"? [duplicate]

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 09:19 AM PDT

I am writing a paper in which I need an object to satisfy a condition. (I can give the specifics here, but it seems to be irrelevant to the question.) The object is singular, so I originally wrote (using the "academic we"):

  1. We require that the object satisfies the condition.

However, (1) sounds weird to me; for some reason, this:

  1. We require that the object satisfy the condition.

sounds better.

(The reason may have something to do with the subjunctive mood, but, every time I refer to the subjunctive mood, I get something wrong—for example, I don't know if this sentence is even properly described as being in the subjunctive mood—so I won't try it outside of parentheses.)

Which one, if either, is to be preferred?

Fyring of a beacon

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 08:27 AM PDT

There's a joke in Archie Armstrong's Banquet of Jests (1641) that turns on wordplay between "frying bacon" and "fyring a beacon".

It's easy to understand "bacon" and "beacon" in light of the Great Vowel Shift then underway, but which phenomenon or dialect would explain "frying" and "fyring"? For example, were /frV/ and /fVr/ commonly metathesized in 17th-century England, as /prV/ and /pVr/ are today? Or is Archie just stretching plausibility a little to find a context where one might confuse "bacon" and "beacon"?

Archie Armstrong frying bacon joke

Of Frying Bacon. [pp. 329-331]

A Justice of Peace bearing a spite to a Countrey fellow, had a curious eye over him, to take him in one trap or other. At length one of his Intelligencers brought him word, that hee found him sitting in an Alehouse, frying of Bakon. O Trayour! saith he; here is my warrant, seek out an Officer, serve it upon him presently, and without bayle or Maine-prise carry him to prison. His authority was obeyed, and there the poore man lay, till th next generall Assises: then amongst other great offenders, it came to this fellowes turne to be called to the Barre: when the Judge asked him what his offence was, and why he was committed? The poore man answered, for nothing else, but for frying of Bacon. The Judge was somewhat startled at his answer, and askt who had committed him. The Justice presently rising up, told him he was the man, aggrivating the offence, and affirming that in so doing, he had committed felony by the statute. The Judge asking him by what Statute, for it was beyond either his reading or knowledge: he told him by such a Statute, made in the yeare of Reigne, of such a King. The Judge desirous to be instructed in a point of Law, which he never heard of before, commanded the Statute Booke to be brought, and the Clarke of the Peace to reade it openly; where it was found, that the fyring of a Beacon, &c. was in such and such degrees punishable. Those which before wondred, now laughed outright; the Justice was flouted; the poore man acquitted; and ever since it had beene lawfull to eate fryed Bacon without prejudice to any Statute.

What part of speech is "sitting"?

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 08:13 AM PDT

  1. look at the man sitting on the bus.
  2. he decided to abandon his subway seat in favor of a woman standing nearby.

What parts of speech are "sitting" and "standing"?

A word for drain plugs in boats?

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 08:01 AM PDT

In row boats, and similar boats, there is a drain plug, which is taken out when it is ashore, to empty for water. In Norwegian the term used is 'nygle', and in Icelandic 'nöldur'. In contemporary English it seems that the term in use is 'drain plug'.

Did English have one word, as e.g. 'spigot', for drain plugs? If so, what was it?

What is the meaning of "to bracket" in this mathematical statement?

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 07:16 AM PDT

I recently came across the following two sentences and have difficulties to understand especially the word "to bracket" in this context.

Take x percent of A and bracket B by that amount.

The upper value is your C, the lower value is your D.

What exactly does "bracket" mean here?

Assuming that A would be 10, x would be 20 (percent), and B would be 50:

  1. first idea:

    20 percent of 10 would be 2. Would "to bracket" mean that I put half of 2 "below" the 50 and the other half of it above?

    So that I have C = 51 and D = 49?

  2. second idea:

    Or would I put 2 below and 2 above 50?

    So that I get C = 52 and D = 48?

Or does it have a completely different meaning?

"I won't repeat the same mistake" or "I won't repeat the mistake"? [closed]

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 06:31 AM PDT

Which of the two is correct?

Does saying "repeat" already suffice the usage of "same"?

How to thank the sale assistant for his advice? [closed]

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 06:10 AM PDT

I visited a flooring supplier and the sales assistant has given me lots of useful advice. I want to write an email to say thank you. Is there another natural, casual but polite way of saying "Thank you for your advice when I visited your store"?

Thank you!

Is there a semantic difference between ‘without’ and ‘‑less’?

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 07:41 AM PDT

I am trying to decide whether the sentences '[X] argues [Y]'s death to be without sin' and '[X] argues [Y]'s death to be sinless' actually carry the same meaning. The Oxford Dictionary defines 'sinless' such:

sinless

ADJECTIVE
Free from sin.

'the sinless life of Christ'

The same dictionary defines the prepositional use of 'without' as:

without

PREPOSITION

  1. In the absence of.
    1. Not having the use or benefit of.
    2. [often with verbal noun] In circumstances in which the action mentioned does not happen.
  2. archaic, literary Outside.

To me, there seems to be slightly different nuances to them. Checking the suffix itself, it is defined as:

-less

SUFFIX

  1. (forming adjectives and adverbs from nouns) not having; free from.
  2. (forming adjectives and adverbs from verbs) not affected by or not carrying out the action of the verb.

I find it hard to pinpoint what exactly the difference between these two are. Are they really the same; or is the nuance which I intuitively feel there to be, substantiated?

A bottle of standard or premium wines - plural or singular? [migrated]

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 03:17 AM PDT

I am struggling with the sentence below, should wine be plural or singular? And why?

COME AND BUY A BOTTLE OF OUR STANDARD OR PREMIUM WINES AT OUR CLUB.

Thank you very much. T

Meaning of 'That seems to be it' in context

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 10:37 AM PDT

Read the passage and answer the question below

John: Have you ever done any of these extramural courses before?
Amy: No don't think so although I did do something on psychodrama once but no it wasn't extramural was it?
John: That seems to be it.

Question: Previous extramural courses attended by Amy:_____

I put psychodrama there as I thought John said that psychodrama seems to be a extramural course, but the answer says it should be 'no'. I am always confused with tag questions and do not understand what 'That seems to be it' means.

what part of speech is "standing"? [closed]

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 07:47 AM PDT

  1. Accordingly he decided to abandon his subway seat in favor of a woman standing nearby.
  2. Accordingly he decided to abandon his subway seat in favor of a woman who was standing nearby.

Are these sentences same? If so, what part of speech is "standing"?

Word that is used to describe a law or contract that could become too powerful because of vague wording

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 06:40 AM PDT

I'm looking for a word used to describe laws or contracts that have the potential to become too powerful because of vague wording. At first I thought it was something like "overreaching" but looking up the meaning of that yields different results.

Thank you!

An adjective to describe eyes like these?

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 09:24 AM PDT

Some people have eyes that look rather different than most people's, with their whole upper eyelids being very visible. Is there a term or an adjective for eyes like these?

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What does this law-excerpt mean? [migrated]

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 06:05 AM PDT

I need to know what...

Tax means the income tax payable under this Ordinance and includes any additional tax, excess profit tax, penalty, interest, fee or other charges leviable or payable under this Ordinance

...means in terms of reference and congent excerpt since I am going to use it in income tax court?

What does it mean as in the the left or right diagram(set/venn diagram) of the attached image- left diagram or the right one?

  1. Left diagram: "tax" and "income tax" are same entity.
  2. Right diagram: "tax" and "income tax" are different entity where "tax" contains "income tax" along with others.

** I want to prove in court that the right side diagram is the true meaning of section 2(62)- is it possible?**

N.B. I am referring to section 2(62) of this tax law http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/act-672.html

diagram

Comma at the End of a List Following a Colon

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 06:50 AM PDT

Is the following sentence written correctly?

Bob's three favorite colors: black, red, and blue, are Emma's least favorite colors.

Specifically, I'm asking about the comma following blue.

Can't figure out whether I can go for a certain usage which appears to be correct

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 02:15 AM PDT

Can this be considered correct if I go for

Extract data from a site requiring a login.

Instead of using

Extract data from a site that requires a login.

I came across a correct sentence

They did all the hard jobs requiring unskilled labor.

Very similar to my former expression?

Is there a word for "insults that you take as a compliment"?

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 06:22 AM PDT

For example a person insults someone, the victim of the insult understands that they have just been insulted but instead takes it as a badge of honor and turns into a compliment for themselves

Notes in a business report without a verb?

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 03:02 AM PDT

There are notes a in business report like 'Contractor to proceed as per the comments'. I really wonder that there is not verb to complete the sentence and apparently it looks to use as 'contractor will or shall proceed ~.' What does it make as a sentence? Also, can it apply for passive form (e.g. this to be proceeded by contractor.)?

Articles with Spatial Prepositions

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 05:04 AM PDT

Are both sentences correct? with and without the indefinite article (a):

She lives two minutes' walk from the station

She lives a two minutes' walk from the station

"I remember the advice he gave to me" Why add preposition to?

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 08:35 AM PDT

While I was reading a book, I stumbled upon a sentence "I remember the advice he gave to me".

From my understanding, give can be used in two ways.

First. Give + IO + DO. For example, "He gave me an answer."

Second. Give + DO + to IO. For example, "He gave a book to Jane."

So, I thought the correct sentence should be "I remember the advice he gave me" But the sentence includes preposition "to". Which one is right? And why is it?

Should I describe a book I've read in the past or present tense?

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 02:32 AM PDT

For example, should I say, "Recently, I finished a novel that was called The Pyrates. The plot of it was that a hero called Avery was sent by the King of England blah, blah, blah."

OR

"Recently I finished a novel that is called The Pyrates. The plot of it is that a hero called Avery is sent by the King of England blah, blah, blah."

If the sentence should be a mixture of past and present tense verbs, be notify me. For example, it was called The Pyrates, the plot of it is that blah, blah, blah,

/i/ sound before "ng" and "nk"

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 10:25 AM PDT

I'm a substitute teacher and recently was teaching a kindergarten class about long i sound. They were crossing out words without long i, circling words with long i. One of the words was ink. I told them no, listen , we don't say i nk (say it with a long i to see what I mean) and they crossed it out. Later, looking at the teacher's edition, it had ink circled. I thought it was just a mistake then I saw that an ink bottle was actually used as an example in the book for the long i sound. I thought something was terribly wrong so I looked it up in the dictionary—it shows i in ink as a long i sound (I looked at many dictionaries, all were the same). This can't be right, but I'm wondering if it's one if those things that's just been accepted and not questioned. Or if it's a category that hasn't been explored yet as needing a separate sound to clarify, like words with r-controlled vowels. Any comments on this would be extremely helpful.

Edit:

I realized I made a mistake with my original post and used long I all the way through. I meant to say that in ink, think, pink, thing, ring, king, etc., in other words, words ending in "nk" and "ng", the "i" is usually pronounced more like a long e sound, like e in meet. At least, that is how I have always pronounced it and heard it pronounced. I'm from California so this could be regional, but I've never heard it pronounced with a short i like in it. Fumblefingers listed words in which a short i occurs, including ink, pink, bit, fit. I definitely hear short i in bit and fit, sounds the same. In ink and pink, i does not sound the same to me, nor have I heard people say it with the same i sound as in bit. Unless the i is getting so quickly blended into the "ng" that it is almost ignored, in which case it should have a special sound category like we teach r-controlled vowels. The pronunciation rules could be very different between the US and the UK .

Is there a better term for 'low-level?'

Posted: 11 Aug 2021 02:42 AM PDT

In computer programming, low-level means something used as a base upon which to build more complex mechanisms. To the untrained ear, I think the term might imply inferiority, which is simply not the case. I'm worried that people will think it is synonymous with basic, which is just plain wrong! (Indeed, low-level programming can be extremely complex.)

Is there a better term I could use? It should, in a nutshell, describe something that is necessary to form more complex things. A slightly technical tinge to the word is preferable, but not strictly necessary.
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