Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange |
- Verbs that can be used as both passive and active in the same form - how to determine if a verb is a such one?
- Does the participial phrase placement make this sentence ambiguous?
- English_Ielts Writting Task 2, Topic: Using Phones in Schools ~ Please help me to improve this essat, thanks in advance! [closed]
- Why is "from" used in "from henceforth"?
- Possessive pronoun for royalty/nobility
- What group is being referred to when a qualifier is left out?
- "Yeap" and "yep" and "yeah"
- What is the difference between "I am starting working on Monday" and "I start working on Monday"?
- Is there a metaphor to say "it's named this way for a reason"
- If someone gets mentioned, can you say to that person, "you got cued"? [closed]
- Could anyone give me some feedback with this ielts writing task 2, thank you so much [closed]
- Can "Pend" be used as a transitive verb? [closed]
- Is there a synonym for "young adult"? [duplicate]
- Is there a specific word for glasses that come apart at the bridge?
- Can a verb be moved, inverted, into the slot between a noun and its modifier? [closed]
- How did the name pronunciation of the letter Z as 'zee' become the consensus in American English?
- Can past simple be used for future event? [closed]
- during the week(s) vs on the weekend(s)
- What is the right form? Causative
- Is there a word for the phenomenon of knowing a compromise will happen and intentionally overbending the truth so the conclusion is more truthful?
- A word for being willing to accept the decisions and/or actions of machines
- What would you call the opposite of hypocrisy?
- Does 'contact number' in BrE refer to the act of contacting or to an electrical telephone contact?
- 'Fight + Object' Vs 'fight + preposition + object'
- Delivery (childbirth) at home, at a home, in a home?
- Word: an inability to understand a spoken language
- Non-standard sentence construction with "there is no"
- "Healthy" vs "healthful"— Do fruits and veggies work out?
- What is the term for groups of numerals within a large number?
| Posted: 17 Aug 2021 10:41 AM PDT Some English verbs can be used in the same form in both active and passive meaning. E.g.:
It's not actually passive ('the door closes' is not same as 'the door is being closed') but you definitely can feel the difference of meaning - 'I close the door' and 'the door closes' - it's like the opposite directions of actor and subject: in first form subject is actor, in the second the subject is the object being acting on. In Russian, we have a special category for this - the reflexiveness. A reflexive verb is formed by adding a -ся postfix which literally means 'itself'. That is, if one closes (закрывает) the door, then the door closes (закрывается) - that is literally 'closes itself' which is nonsense but it means that the door doesn't close anything, but it is being closed itself. I remember there is a general rule in English how to determine if a verb can be used in such way or not. It has something to do with transitiveness (intransitive cannot). But apparently, this rule has many exceptions, it's more kinda guess than a strict rule. I found it somewhere in the Internet long time ago but cannot find it now anymore. Could you please explain more about this topic? How such verbs are called in English linguistics? What is the rule? What does transitiveness have to do with all this? etc  |
| Does the participial phrase placement make this sentence ambiguous? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 10:10 AM PDT Do you think I should reword the following sentence? "I am excited to work for any business that allows me to flex my creative muscles, crafting well-thought-out pieces that will engage customers." Would it be better like this?: "I am excited to work for any business that allows me to flex my creative muscles and craft well-thought-out pieces that will engage customers." I'm concerned about whether the positioning of the participial phrase is slightly awkward and that it is not clear whether it modifies the subject "me" or "any business". I suppose because it's a similar construction to, say, a sentence like this: "I went to the gallery to see the painting that had reportedly stunned audiences, bringing them to tears." Because "bringing them..." clearly modifies the subject "the painting" in this example, and this is a similar construction to the first, then is it likely that readers will think "crafting..." refers to "any business" in the first sentence?  |
| Posted: 17 Aug 2021 09:36 AM PDT Some people believe that children should be banned from using their phones during the school day. Others believe that children should be allowed to use their phones. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. In recent years, children's employment of phones during school time has been a debate in many parts of the world. While there is a school of thought that phones should not be used towards students in their school, I partly believe that those should not be banned. On the one hand, the prohibition of using phones towards children would bring at least two benefits not only for themselves but also for educators. Without any doubt, the capacity of studying would be dramatically declined unless students merely focus on their lessons in classes, instead of chatting, notifications of social networks on their phone's screens. Due to the drawbacks of learning, children should not be given permission to keep their phones company in schools. According to a result of the Asian press survey, many students have tended to cheat using their phones on examinations, which is a red alarm in many nations. In addition, teachers will face difficulties both on managing the children's cheating by technological equipment like phones and on ensuring their quality after exams if students are allowed to use phones in classes. On the other hand, using phones also creates positive results for studying; moreover, phones do not really lead to negative students' mental and ethic development. By employing phones, the students can easily access the Internet to find out the answer for a difficult quiz that their teachers do not carefully instruct in classes. Besides, they can use phones for recreation like socializing with their friends or playing online games just in the break. When it comes to wrong actions and behaviours of children, there must be mentioned both of other aspects such as environmental elements, domestic education and social impacts. Clearly, phones are being totally blamed for unexpected ones. Therefore, there should be other methods rather than prohibition of using phones towards students in schools. In conclusion, the ban of using phones in schools gives pros and cons for students. I suggest that there be more flexible methods of using phones in children' schools.  |
| Why is "from" used in "from henceforth"? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 09:34 AM PDT The dictionaries unanimously include the word from in their definitions of henceforth:
So it strikes me as redundant to say from henceforth. Yet I see it used a few times used in the KJV Bible. For example
Not surprisingly, Shakespeare also uses it in Henry IV:
FreeDictionary records an instance in a legal text:
Is there an explanation for this redundant use? English seems to me a language that avoids redundancy when it can, and henceforth can clearly stand on its own. Then, why the from in from henceforth? Note that I am very interested in antiquated language and will not mind if the explanation includes outdated examples (I would even encourage it).  |
| Possessive pronoun for royalty/nobility Posted: 17 Aug 2021 09:14 AM PDT How do I substitute possessive pronouns his/hers/theirs/[name]'s for a royalty/nobility? Example sentence: Is this Queen Anne's phone? Yes, it is .... But I don't want to use "Queen Anne's" in the response.  |
| What group is being referred to when a qualifier is left out? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 08:21 AM PDT What group is being referred to when a qualifier is left out? For example in the sentence "Women are better drivers than men." does women mean all women, most women, typical (average) woman or something else? "Muffins are healthy." All of them? A typical muffin?  |
| Posted: 17 Aug 2021 10:09 AM PDT Is the use of "Yeap" and "yep" and "yeah", more predominant in different English speaking countries, or is it more a matter of personal preference? UPDATE: The motivation for my question is not for a scientific study (I am an engineer by trade). The question was on the "spur of the moment", after replying to a comment in another SE forum. There was an exchange of "yeap" and "yep" and I merely wanted to know if that is indicative of the country of origin. I haven't conducted any research on the matter, I wanted the perspective of native English speakers (I am not an native English speaker). Given that the question originated on a written forum, I am more interested in how people write the words.  |
| What is the difference between "I am starting working on Monday" and "I start working on Monday"? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 07:16 AM PDT What is the difference between "I am starting my new job on Monday" and "I start my new job on Monday"? I am studying "Grammar in Use Intermediate", and it says I can use the present simple to talk about people if their plans are fixed like a timetable. And "I start my new job on Monday" was one of the examples. But as far as I learnt, present continuous is also used for fixed future plans or arrangements. So as I understand it, "I am starting my new job on Monday" is also grammatically natural. However, I wonder if there is any difference in meaning between those. Is there any situation that I specifically/preferably use only one of them? If there is, in what kind of situation would it be? or are they basically conveying the same message? or is any of them grammatically awkward for native speakers? Please share your knowledge, thanks!  |
| Is there a metaphor to say "it's named this way for a reason" Posted: 17 Aug 2021 08:17 AM PDT I was wondering is there an English or American metaphor or phrase to say it has been called this way for a reason? Suppose I want to say this
Is there an expression that sounds more like a native!  |
| If someone gets mentioned, can you say to that person, "you got cued"? [closed] Posted: 17 Aug 2021 06:49 AM PDT So the context is, I got mentioned in a group conversation on a chat messenger and separately outside of the conversation, one of the participants said to me, "you got cued", meaning, "I was mentioned in the group chat". I know how the word "cue" is used, such as "cue the music", "that's your cue", etc. but I've never heard of it being used like the phrase above. Would that be a valid sentence to use?  |
| Could anyone give me some feedback with this ielts writing task 2, thank you so much [closed] Posted: 17 Aug 2021 06:27 AM PDT Topic: Using a computer every day can have more negative than positive effects on children. Do you agree or disagree? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. There is no doubt that with the intense evolution of technology, computers are increasingly becoming an essential device in our lives. A child could grasp how to use them and even depends on them every day. People suppose that using computers impacts children negatively instead of giving them benefits. In my opinion, I argue with this viewpoint. Needless to say, if we use something excessively, we are easily addicted to them including using the computers. A child is not mature enough to understand the danger of what a computer brings, so it is the reason why parents always concern about their children. For instance, a lot of platforms that contain vulnerable images or corrupt information could lead children to behave rudely and create their wrong points of view. Having said that, using a computer also has its beneficial impacts besides drawbacks. A computer with a strong wifi connection would help children search for a lot of useful information that supports their studies. Following the development of technology, a wealth of academic books, study apps, and educational channels have emerged to served students. Thanks to them, children can easily approach the lessons and comprehend them. In addition, using computers is the shortest way to link people in the world. For example, even though your children live in a country in the Eastern, they could converse with other children in the Western. Children easily make friends and by the same token, exchange the culture or learn about the foreign language. They would broaden the wide of knowledge and be active to interact with people around them. And day by day, thanks to using computers, children could be approached to the influential people, valuable information, they will grow up in mind and become their best versions. To summarize, parents should encourage children to avoid toxic platforms while using computers instead of criticizing them. It will become a user-friendly device if we use it in a true way.  |
| Can "Pend" be used as a transitive verb? [closed] Posted: 17 Aug 2021 05:37 AM PDT I found myself writing a sentence as follows:
Only to realise that I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to use pend as a verb in this sense. While not a logical basis, it "sounds" right. I found online only mentions of it being used as an intransitive verb.1 See the following intransitive example:
But I did not turn up any evidence of it being used as a transitive verb. Regardless, I think that I would be understood by others if I used the word in this way. Only, it is not stated to be proper by the resources that I have found. Even so, does that render it incorrect?  |
| Is there a synonym for "young adult"? [duplicate] Posted: 17 Aug 2021 04:50 AM PDT I am a little confused about the difference between a definition of "young adult" vs the list of synonyms that come up in a thesaurus. The definition of "young adult" is generally a late teen to early twenty or someone in the early years of adulthood. Yet in the thesaurus there are synonyms such as juvenile, adolescent, minor etc, all of which clearly point to ages younger than adulthood. In my opinion none of these are true synonyms in the same way that gray/grey is not a synonym for black. My question then is, is there a single word synonym for young adult? I had been using youth before but realised that it appears to mean either an adolescent or young adult and is therefore a bit too vague? Looking forward to a second opinion on the above.  |
| Is there a specific word for glasses that come apart at the bridge? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 04:24 AM PDT I have never seen this before, spectacles which come apart in the middle and can be clicked back together again. Is there a word for this?
 |
| Can a verb be moved, inverted, into the slot between a noun and its modifier? [closed] Posted: 17 Aug 2021 04:33 AM PDT Can a verb be moved, inverted, into the slot between a noun and its modifier? I mean e.g.
or
Not great examples, sorry (I've been struggling to find a simple past tense verb that can't also be used as an adjective).  |
| How did the name pronunciation of the letter Z as 'zee' become the consensus in American English? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 05:14 AM PDT According to Wikipedia as well as my own experiences interacting with people of different nationalities, the pronunciation of 'Z' seems to have maintained some variation of the hard t- sound from the original Greek/Latin "zeta" in most Latin and Germanic languages. The only exceptions I can find are Portugese and American English. In the US, the "zee" pronunciation is so much the unanimous choice, I only recently became aware of this particularly slight against Her Majesty's alphabet. According to Wikipedia, the 'zee' pronunciation comes "from a late 17th-century English dialectal form," citing a book by Thomas Lye from that period. So, is it fair to assume that this style was popular in England at the time and that American colonists, wanting to keep in vogue with the latest fashions out of the old country took it up? The Canadian Encyclopedia offers the opposite explanation--that it was popularized in the spirit of the American Revolution to inspire rebellion against tyrannical taxation and spelling mandates. Another possibility is that it comes from the Alphabet Song, itself an American variation on a long-standing European tradition. (Zee rhymes with me but zed only rhymes with...Ted?) I think this was around the same time we invented football. Personally, I think the ABC song was probably the most important contributor since it helped so many children learn to read and literacy was considered a valuable skill at that time. Would be interested to hear what others think. Any other possibilities that should be explored?  |
| Can past simple be used for future event? [closed] Posted: 17 Aug 2021 07:33 AM PDT So here past simple is used for future time.
Why not use make instead? This looks like one of those cases where "tense" diverges from what it's supposed to represent (according to oversimplified ell grammar books), which is not that uncommon, apparently. I couldn't figure out how to google this particular rule, so I come here. Edit: I disagree with the motion to close as there's nothing online that even mentions this constuction.  |
| during the week(s) vs on the weekend(s) Posted: 17 Aug 2021 04:58 AM PDT
(Source: New York Times article: How a Professional Rugby Player Spends Sundays) This is the first paragraph of the article. Here, the week and the weekends refer to weekdays and weekends in general, respectively. Note that the week is singular while the weekends is plural. And I agree with these choices of singular/plural forms. Although I could possibly use singular the weekend instead of plural the weekends, I wouldn't use plural the weeks instead of singular the week. So I'd like to know two things: a. Do you agree with me on the choice of singular/plural forms? b. If so, how would you explain that you can allow the weekends to mean "weekends" in general but not the weeks to mean "weeks" in general?  |
| What is the right form? Causative Posted: 17 Aug 2021 07:05 AM PDT
or
Can I use "have" instead of "get"?  |
| Posted: 17 Aug 2021 06:41 AM PDT Is there a word that describes the phenomenon of compromise where side A is telling the truth, side B is outright lying, but because both sides don't want the arbiter to pick dead in the middle, rather closer to their side, they exaggerate their case so that the concluded middle ground is actually favorable to them? It comes up in politics, arguments, design, budget, etc. Would be great if there were a word to describe it. It's a gaming of the arbiter's strategy "the truth is in the middle" I wasn't successful in looking it up through any reverse dictionaries since it requires a situation and perspective of a situation to understand, and I don't have the English skill to explain it without an example. But I hope there's a word for it! (I would think there's definitely a word for it in Chinese. Chinese seems to always have very terse words for complex situational phenomenons. But I don't know the word in Chinese either.)  |
| A word for being willing to accept the decisions and/or actions of machines Posted: 17 Aug 2021 10:27 AM PDT Is there a word that describes the attitude of a human willingly accepting the decisions and/or actions of machines (automation, robots, control systems, etc). e.g. I have just bought a new car with autonomous braking which initially I did not trust and tended to turn off. Some models of human/machine interaction are based on trust building as the person's knowledge of the purpose of a machine, how it functions and what is its actual performance becomes clear and understood. I distrust the autonomous braking on my car even though I have some idea of its purpose and how it functions. I cannot however verify its performance because I cannot test it without potentially wrecking my new car (simulate a frontal collision). The essential characteristics of the relationship between human and machine seems to be that the machine extends human capability and can do things (in the case of autonomous braking) beyond our cognitive ability and speed of response. Also the human's life or safety depends on it and there is no alternative or escape because the actions needed when the machine detects danger and intervenes happens independently of our own ability to act. I welcome any suggestions for a term that describes our attitude towards "submission to machines" in this particular context that involves our personal safety.  |
| What would you call the opposite of hypocrisy? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 04:59 AM PDT If a person prescribed themselves a set of what is morally allowable, and that set was larger than what they prescribed to other people, I would call that person a "hypocrite".
If a person prescribed themselves a set of what is morally allowable, and that set was exactly the same size as what they prescribed to other people, I would call that person "morally consistent" or something like that.
Finally, and this is my question, what if a person prescribes for themselves a set of what is morally allowable, and that set is smaller than what they prescribe for others?
What would I call this person?
 |
| Does 'contact number' in BrE refer to the act of contacting or to an electrical telephone contact? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 05:47 AM PDT It is common in BrE to use 'contact number' where AmE would use 'telephone number'. Does the 'contact' in 'contact number' refer to the act of making contact, or is there a more technical origin, as in the number of a specific electrical contact in the telephone system?  |
| 'Fight + Object' Vs 'fight + preposition + object' Posted: 17 Aug 2021 10:08 AM PDT Often the verb fight is used without a preposition before its object, and sometimes with the preposition against!
Are both the usages equally acceptable, or is there any special rule as to when to use a preposition?  |
| Delivery (childbirth) at home, at a home, in a home? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 08:50 AM PDT I've read an article and there's a sentence which confuses me:
If I rewrite it this way:
is it still correct? And if so, what's the difference between two of them?  |
| Word: an inability to understand a spoken language Posted: 17 Aug 2021 09:16 AM PDT Illiterate is used to describe someone who cannot read. I am looking for a word to describe someone who cannot understand a spoken language.
Not-fluent is the obvious compound, but it is rather inelegant.  |
| Non-standard sentence construction with "there is no" Posted: 17 Aug 2021 08:17 AM PDT I have just come across this very unusual construction, in my view at least. Is it correct and if yes, what grammar rules apply here? I would really appreciate it if anyone could help me with this and refer me to proper English grammar and usage references on this. Thanks a lot in advance! "The main conclusion of this study was that there is no one, or five, or even ten such failures which, once removed, would boost the development of the sub-sector."  |
| "Healthy" vs "healthful"— Do fruits and veggies work out? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 10:31 AM PDT The OED doesn't say much other than the two words have long been synonyms since the 1500s.
Why do we say that our bananas and tomatoes are healthy foods when it should be healthful? Is there any substantial evidence on why this widely used terminology is bungled?  |
| What is the term for groups of numerals within a large number? Posted: 17 Aug 2021 09:58 AM PDT I am writing software in which I would like to be able to return the groups of numerals within a large number. For example, given a number 123,456,789, my software would return 123 then 456 then 789. I would like to give each of the 3-digit sequences a proper name, but I cannot find what the correct one would be. Would it be groups? I thought about thousands, but that seems imprecise. I should clarify that I know what to call each individual group (thousands, millions, etc.). What I don't know if there is a general term that applies to all the groups.  |
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