Thursday, August 19, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

exchanging with someone else or exchanging with someone else's?

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 10:35 AM PDT

"...everyone was exchanging theirs with someone else's" or "...everyone was exchanging theirs with someone else"

You could exchange your work with a person, or you could exchange your work with that person's work. How to think about this, and which one is more correct?

What does it mean by "Done Diddly doo do"

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 10:27 AM PDT

What does it mean by "Done Diddly doo do"

I have heard people saying this after a meeting or at the end of the meeting.

Alright folks we are done diddly doo do.

Can I say ... spiking over something?

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 09:59 AM PDT

As I was trying to come up with a riddle I wrote "daggers spiking over buildings" and I meant some kind of plant that leaves were over city buildings(because it was way closer than those), but I want to know if this is in any way correct?

"Nothing else on earth is worth being preoccupied with"

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 09:47 AM PDT

I know that worth can be used with a gerundial clause that has a passive meaning:

A lot of the small towns in the area are definitely worth visiting. (ldoceonline)

But can "worth" be used with a passive gerundial clause that finishes with a preposition in this way?

Nothing else on earth is worth being preoccupied with.

My intended meaning of this sentence would be that nothing else is worth for anyone to be preoccupied with it. The sentence I wrote seems correct to me and I like its conciseness. However, it does need a bit of thinking to understand it well. Is there any ambiguity in it?

opposite effect to/than/from/of

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 08:14 AM PDT

Sea level rise has the opposite effect "to/than/from/of" coastal uplift.

Of these 4, which ones are correct and which are wrong?

Is " mixed" correct in this case? [closed]

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 08:04 AM PDT

"I have got mixed taste in music". Is "mixed" a correct adjective in this case? Mixed as in I like/listen to all types/genres of music or my playlist has songs from different genres. If it's wrong then how should I write it

Doing Something with Alacrity? [closed]

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 08:39 AM PDT

Is there any particular verb, slang term, or idiom to mean "doing something with alacrity"?

"Highly unlikely" or "High impossible" or "Highly improbable" [closed]

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 07:51 AM PDT

Which one(s) of these 3, is correct of describing a chance of 2%?

Thanks in advance!

Is something depicted in art or within art?

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 08:11 AM PDT

I am writing about certain paintings and the content depicted on the canvas. Which proposition should I use: in or within?

"... depicted in paintings"

or

"... depicted within paintings"

Different phrasings for "analyzing of all possibilities in the list"

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 06:56 AM PDT

I'm currently writing a paper in mathematics.

In the beginning of the article I present a big list where each line consists of a sequences of numbers. Through the rest of the text I discuss whether certain subsequences are possible or not, so I must constantly refer to the list in the beginning.

Since this reference is made so repeatedly, I thought I'd better use different phrasings, instead of always writing "analyzing all sequences in List 1, etc."

How else can I state this? "Going through the list"? "searching through the list"? "perusing the list"?

My goal is to tell the reader to actually look at each line in the list and see it for himself.

Is this letter grammatically sound? [closed]

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 06:35 AM PDT

To whom it may concern,

My name is John J., reference number 123, and I refer to my previous correspondence with your staff via Facebook and live chat on Eflow website. It is in relation to an unpaid toll from the 30th of July last, which I was totally unaware of as I had paid for one trip on that day, but obviously there was another pass on the M50 that I forgot about. I recently came back from holidays and found an STR charge notice in my mail which had to be paid before or on the 14th of August, but due to circumstances it was paid on the 16th. I am aware that my payment was overdue and, seeing that I have paid already, would you be in a position to waive any further penalty?

Please find attached my proof of payment.

Kind regards,

M50 is just a motorway/highway, for your information. I am purely interested in knowing whether the letter is formulated correctly and the usage of tenses in this case.

Synonyms for "as the saying goes"

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 05:44 AM PDT

When writing where I want to present quotes, I've used the phrase "as the saying goes...". Is there any other phrase that can be used to present a quote or proverb ?

Dialectal variation in subtleties of usage of the word "sore"

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 05:54 AM PDT

I grew up in southern England, and now live in Scotland. There are many interesting and well-known quirks of usage that differ between Southern English English and the various Scottish dialects and Scots, but one that I've never heard discussed, and one that is so subtle that I can't quite put my finger on it, is usage of the adjective sore.

In Scotland, sore is pretty much synonymous, and interchangeable, with painful. The OED definition seems to agree, and I get the impression that American usage matches this.

But when I moved to Scotland, I found that some standard Scots usages of sore seemed slightly jarring to me. In my idiolect growing up, some things could be sore:

  • Grazes, cuts and burns are sore.

I'm sore all over from staying out too long in the sun. (This is an unlikely situation to occur in Scotland.)

  • Aching muscles are sore.

I'm still sore from yesterday's workout.

  • There are fixed expressions sore head, sore belly̧, sore loser which are always acceptable.

However, other usages, typical in Scotland, seem subtly off, or at least non-idiomatic, to me.

  • [on seeing someone being punched in the face, or falling over] That looks sore! where my idiolect would have had That looks painful
  • The bruise on my arm is sore where I'd have The bruise on my arm is tender

I can't quite put my finger on the rules for sore in my native idiolect. I thought maybe it was related to the location of the pain (on the skin rather than internal), but I wouldn't have described a bruise as sore. Maybe it's related to the origin or severity of the pain, but I'm really not sure.

I can't find any evidence online to support the restricted usage of sore in my native idiolect. Does anyone else recognise this or know anything about it?

About grammar of this sentence (I will be out of the office and not sure when I will come back)

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 07:08 AM PDT

  1. I will be out of the office and not sure when I will come back

Is this correct? OR should I write :

  1. I will be out of the office and will not be sure when I will come back?

Since out of the office is a noun phrase and sure is an adjective, I am not sure if the option 1 (and not sure) is the correct one...

Is this sentence correct? "Are we required to attend any religious activity weekly?" [closed]

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 04:40 AM PDT

"Are we required to attend any religious activity weekly?"

I am emphasizing on the word 'any'.

Thank you in advance!

is "make love not violence" grammatically correct or not?

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 04:33 AM PDT

There's a center in Russia that helps victims of sexual assault, and I bought a t-shirt from them with the slogan "make love not violence" but as I started to think about this phrase, it started to seem that it's a clear mistake because it's a mistake to use make instead of do with violence. However, some people think, as this phrase stems from "make love not war", it's possible to change last word to give this phrase a different meaning, and even though it's not grammatically perfect, it wouldn't be considered a real mistake. As I am not sure about that, I'd like to ask all real grammar pros here, please help us know if it's a mistake or not.

What baffled me is that when I searched in quotes on Google, it gave me little to no results in English. Second, I get when it can be used as on object like in the case "make violence great again", but here it seems that its goal was to be used in idiomatic case, but there's no such case. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

What's a simile/noun used to describe something shaking violently?

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 09:09 AM PDT

I'm looking for a simile or noun that can be used to describe something shaking violently. For example,

The room shook as hard as --insert thing that shakes violently--.

Olden version of "psychopath"

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 04:05 AM PDT

Apparently, the term "psychopath" was coined in 1888, and at that point, it might not have even been used by the laypeople. So, I*m wondering about a word used for people that display psychopathic characteristics that was used in the 1850s. In the book im writing, the main character is from Birmingham, UK, so the word will have to have been common around those parts. The word can be of posh language or street language, either is fine because the main character is familiar with both sociolects.

If x....could happen

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 05:01 AM PDT

I have a question regarding "if" conditionals with could.

"If they see us, they could kill is."

"If they see us, we could start something between us."

They "could" mean "might", as in, the person is only stating is as a possibility, and not a guarantee if the condition becomes true?

How about: "I might go to the party if my mom lets me."

"I could go to the party if my mom lets me."

Do these convey a possibility, and not a guarantee (if the conditional becomes true).

Switching from have been to current tense in a sentence

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 09:01 AM PDT

While working on a project with a friend, we stumbled upon a grammatical problem.

These use cases have been modeled and help convey the game's primary gameplay.

I'm uncertain whether or not it's acceptable to switch between past tense "have been" to current tense "help."

I'm wondering if the following, would be better suited:

These use-cases have been modeled and have helped convey the game's primary gameplay.

My friend argues that the alternative I proposed doesn't clarify that the use-cases still convey the game's primary gameplay to this date.

Are both correct, or is one preferred over the other?

Is "corrosion resistant material" incorrect?

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 07:12 AM PDT

When people say

They made the material corrosion resistant.

they mean corrosion resistant as an adjective. The word corrosion is only a noun, and resistant is both an adjective and a noun. But in this combination resistant isn't a noun, but an adjective.

The problem I have is that adjectives aren't formed as open Noun+Adjective forms. I think the correct form is corrosion-resistant. But people still write corrosion resistant without the hyphen.

So my question is: Is corrosion resistant without a hyphen correct or not? If it is correct, I would like to know why?

The Use of the Present Perfect. What is natural?

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 10:04 AM PDT

Sometimes, I got really confused by the use of the Present Perfect tense. Given the fact, that we don't have this structure in Russian, all we can is to base our knowledge on grammar rules.

The rules are quite simple:

  1. Experience: I have been to London twice.

  2. Unfinished actions: I have lived in Moscow since I was born.

  3. Close connection to the present situation: I have just cooked dinner.

However, when it comes to simple questions, all that grammar rules are not so obvious. For example, if I am not sure and want to re-ask, could I say something like

Have you meant? or Did you mean?

Another case:

I've sent you the letter and I sent you the letter.

Does the first mean that I have just done it and the second that it was some time ago? How do you use it?

Meaning of "appear" in "She appears to have had two children" [closed]

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 07:26 AM PDT

What is the meaning of appear in the following examples:

  1. She appears to have had two children.
  2. He appears to have been elected as the first pope outside of Europe.
  3. Their aircraft appears to have crashed near Kathmandu.
  4. Their offer appears to be the most attractive.

Or, for example, when you try to open a file in Autodesk Simulation Mechanical, you see an error message like:

Warning: [file] appears to be open already.

When do you use "middle" and when "center"?

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 06:10 AM PDT

The other day I was talking to a friend about when to use "middle" or "center". I was using it in the context of top, middle, bottom, as a listing, and he suggested it should be top, center, bottom.

I want to know whether it should be middle or center.

How do you pronounce the << operator

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 04:37 AM PDT

How do you pronounce the << operator?

For example it is used in here.

Why is stainless steel "stainless"?

Posted: 19 Aug 2021 03:56 AM PDT

Inox steel is stainless because it does not stain, but is stain the same thing as rust? I just want to understand since stain reminds me of clothing stains, for instance, and I am rather curious as to why one would call inox steel stainless steel. Where does the term come from?

I've just found http://www.stainless-online.com/why-stainless-steel-stainless.htm
(Nov 10 2014, Edit: The link is now obsolete)

It doesn't explain what I want to know. Is stainless steel an American word? Would a Briton call inox steel, 'stainless steel'?
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