Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

How to request relive early

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 09:38 AM PDT

I have received a reliving date from my current employer but actually, it's a holiday and also it's Monday .so, I need to request them to relive on friday

How to positively describe somebody who misled you by accident?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 09:51 AM PDT

Consider this scenario, of two people talking:

A: Did you go to the shops?
B: No, it was closed even though you said it would be open
A: Oh no, I misled you!
B: No, you didn't mislead me, you just _____ me.

'A' was mistaken, but what did they did wasn't mislead 'B' (intentionally), but made a genuine mistake in trying to help out. I want 'B' to imply the help was appreciated even if it didn't help out in the end.

If picture belongs to someone , Can we say? "Send me a picture of Sally's", "This is a picture of Sally's"

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 08:38 AM PDT

If you use a noun rather than a pronoun. "Send me a picture of Sally", I want a picture that shows what Sally looks like.

But is this correct? "Send me a picture of Sally's", I want a picture that belongs to Sally or that was taken by Sally.

If this is correct then whether we can also say."This is the picture of Sally's (as in, this picture belongs to Sally or was taken by Sally)

Does capitalisation change when a word moves from proper noun to adjective?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 07:32 AM PDT

For the sake of this question I'll use the word Linux as an example, but I really want to ask about the principle generally.

The word Linux started as the name of an operating system kernel written by Linus Torvalds. The name is a contraction of a previous operating and the author's name.

In language the word is commonly use as an adjective. Eg:

Linux system

or

Linux machine

There's a subtlety here that a term like "Linux system" doesn't just refer to systems from a specific vendor in the way you might expect with "Ford car". It is often used to refer to systems with specific behaviour. Though that use may be technically incorrect - this is a language question not a technical one.

This has got me wondering what the rules are around when (if ever) the capitalisation should change from "Linux" to "linux".

Similarly I'm interested in other transitions such as English people will use a phrase

hoover the carpet

to mean cleaning a carpet with any vacuum cleaner, not just one from the brand Hoover.

There's clearly a tipping point at which the original proper noun becomes lost and only the other uses remain. However I was wondering if it's permissible before that to begin to use lower case instead of upper case.

Is "I'm so hot" a good expression when I'm talking about the weather?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 05:52 AM PDT

I'm told that I can't say "I'm so hot" because it can also mean "I'm so sexy"(so boys may misunderstand that I'm picking up them?), and the alternatives might be "It's so hot" or "I feel so hot".

I wonder if the native speakers would think "I'm so hot" is a good expression when I'm talking about the weather. Or would you advise me to use "It's so hot" or "I feel so hot" instead of "I'm so hot"?

btw: if it is, is directly saying "I'm so hot" a good picking up topics? lol

Is there a word for the pattern on pancakes and grilled cheese?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 06:06 AM PDT

I'd like to know if there's a word to describe the somewhat similar pattern that appears when you brown pancakes and buttered slices of bread on a pan. Does "freckled" work?

pancake

grilled cheese

Question on semantic roles [closed]

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 05:46 AM PDT

What are the semantic roles of the subject and direct object in the below sentence?

He has a car.

If I am not mistaken, 'a car' is a theme (at any rate, according to Wikipedia [see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thematic_relation, where it is stated that 'two children' is a theme in the sentence 'He has two children]. But the explanation here is not very clear.

How to use the word "had"? [migrated]

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 01:53 AM PDT

For example,

Yesterday evening they did not have dinner with their teacher.

How can it be changed into past perfect tense?

How did "realize" change from "make real" to 2 new senses: 'understand', 'come to understand'?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 09:33 AM PDT

Millar concedes that "It is not at all obvious how this change could have occurred", and he's a historical linguistics professor! Alas he doesn't expatiate it. Can someone please expound this semantic shift then?

      It is not always easy to understand why a word changes its meaning. The word realize formerly meant 'make real', and still sometimes does, as in She finally realized her childhood ambition. But the word has acquired two new senses: 'understand', as in I realize that time is short, and 'come to understand', as in She suddenly realized that she had forgotten her keys. It is not at all obvious how this change could have occurred [Embolding mine], since the new senses actually require a different construction (a that-complement clause) from the old sense (a simple transitive construction). The change in meaning has been so dramatic that few people are now aware that realize is related to real.

Revised by Robert McColl Millar, Trask's Historical Linguistics (2015 3e), pp 8-9. Trask died in 2004.

Graduation in/from/at

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 12:58 AM PDT

I read this sentence somewhere

After his graduation in the field of medicine at Harvard University, he was offered a great job.

Is this sentence grammatically correct? Aren't we supposed to use the preposition from instead of at and say:

After his graduation in the field of medicine from Harvard University, he was offered a great job

Why do we sometimes omit and sometimes retain the conjunctions "because/while/when etc" when reducing adverb clauses?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 12:55 AM PDT

We can reduce this sentence

"Because she has a test next week, she is studying very hard." (1-1) -> "Having a test next week, she is studying very hard." (1-2)

"Before he bought the house, he did a lot of research." (2-1)-> "Before buying the house, he did a lot of research." (2-2)

"After she had lunch, she went back to work." (3-1)-> "After having lunch, she went back to work." (3-2)

"While I was walking home from work, I saw an old friend" (4-1) -> "While walking home from work, I saw an old friend" (4-2)

"As I was walking home from work, I saw an old friend" (5-1) -> "Walking home from work, I saw an old friend" (5-2)

We know that a gerund plays a role of a noun and a present participle plays a role of an adjective. But a noun or an adjective can play a role of an adverb.

Is "Having a test next week" in (1-2) a gerund or a present participle?

Is "before" in (2-2) a preposition and "buying the house" is a gerund?

Is "after" in (3-2) a preposition and "having lunch" is a gerund?

Is "while" in (4-2) a preposition and "walking home from work" is a gerund?

Is "Walking home from work" in (5-2) a gerund or a present participle?

Why do we sometimes omit and sometimes retain the conjunctions "because/while/when etc" when reducing adverb clauses?

In 17C. English, why could the present progressive be used on inanimate Objective Functional Roles?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 12:45 AM PDT

  1. What's the Functional Role of the nouns in these sentences? OBJECTIVE? I don't think INSTRUMENTAL.

(ii) INSTRUMENTAL: The inanimate force of object causally involved in the state of action identified by the verb. [John used the hammer to break the window.] [The hammer broke the window.]

Alan Cruse (died 2020), Meaning in Language (2011 3e), p 288.

(vi) OBJECTIVE: The inanimate entity affected by the action or state identified by the verb: [Mary opened the door.] [The door opened.]

Op. cit. p 289.

  1. Now here's my main question. Below, Millar and McWhorter don't expatiate why "there's an English-speaker alive who regards these as other than normal", and utilizing the present progressive on Inanimate Objectives "is almost incomprehensible to us at first reading". To wit, why did 17th-century Anglophones like Samuel Pepys find this natural?

      Lest you suspect that my example of hopefully might be atypical, let's look at something quite different. Consider these examples:

1.9 My car is being repaired.
1.10 My house is being painted.
1.11 This problem is being discussed at today's meeting.

Anything strange here? I doubt it – I don't think there's an English-speaker alive who regards these as other than normal.
      But it wasn't always so. Until the end of the eighteenth century, this particular construction did not exist in Standard English, and an English-speaker would have had to say My car is repairing, My house is painting and This problem is discussing at today's meeting – forms that are absolutely impossible for us now. (For example, the seventeenth-century civil servant Samuel Pepys wrote in his famous diary the sentence 'I met a dead corpse of the plague, just carrying down a little pair of stairs', which is almost incomprehensible to us at first reading – we have to say just being carried.)
      This curious (to us) construction was the only possibility in the eighteenth century, and when a few innovating speakers began to say things like My house is being painted, the linguistic conservatives of the day could not contain their fury. Veins bulging purply from their foreheads, they attacked the new construction as 'clumsy', 'illogical', 'confusing' and 'monstrous'. But their efforts were in vain. Today all those who objected to the 'illogical' and 'monstrous' new form are long dead and the traditional form they defended with such passion is dead with them. The 'illogical' and 'monstrous' new form has become the only possibility, and even the most careful and elegant writer of English would not dream of trying to get away with the defunct older form. And you are probably marvelling at this eighteenth-century fury and wondering what all the fuss was about, just as the next generation will read in puzzlement about the attacks on hopefully and wonder what all the fuss was about.

Revised by Robert McColl Millar, Trask's Historical Linguistics (2015 3e), pp 8-9. Trask died in 2004.

At classier affairs one would also have been advised to avoid popping up with louche vulgarities such as The house is being built — until then, one said The house is building — and if you said stacked and fixed the way we say them instead of "stack-ed" and "fix-ed," to many it sounded like you were clipping the end of the word!!

McWhorter, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue The Untold History of English (2009), pp 74-5.

What is the name of the literary technique for this?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 01:01 AM PDT

So the common adage is "The apple never falls far from the tree."

So what would you call: "Sometimes the apple falls very far from the tree."

It points out an exception to the rule. What is the name of the literary device for this?

Thanks!

He went to the cinema if a good movie was "on". He went to the theater if a good play was "on" or "up"?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 07:12 AM PDT

A good movie was "on", sounds alright. A good play was "on" doesn't sound right to me. Does "up" work like coming up/scheduled/soon to appear?

The correct use of was or were, when we group items and people

Posted: 30 Aug 2021 10:51 PM PDT

Here is an example in the Cambridge English Dictionary.

A string quartet was playing Mozart.

Is this correct? or should it be "A string quartet were playing Mozart. Is a quartet an "it" or a "they"?

The definition of a "Quartet" being

a group of four people who play musical instruments or sing as a group:

If we were to presume that the quartet was playing, then, would it not then follow, if we are not in a "Subjunctive Mood", that we should say

"That pair of black trousers was too short" as opposed to "That pair of black trousers were too short"?

Even more confusingly, in our "soirée musicale", we seem to be dehumanising people, relegating them to being mere objects," whilst our trousers seem to be given the benefit of the doubt, even if "they" were too short". Should not a musician's humanity take preference over a group's singularity?

How to express "at least one" or "at least some" (of a countable or uncountable collection respetively), as in antivacuous statements?

Posted: 30 Aug 2021 10:18 PM PDT

Discrete (countable) case example: All/Some of the trees on this block are oak. [And there is at least one oak tree on the block, but possibly two or more.]

Continuous (uncountable) case example: All/Some of the milk in the fridge is spoiled. [And at least some small volume of milk remains in said fridge.]

Note that "all" typically entails "some", unless interpreting 'some' as "some but not all" (more than none but less than all) instead of "at least some" (up to all). The semantic intent here is to leave it intentionally ambiguous, in a similar way that "sheep" can refer to a singular sheep or multiple sheep (whereas 'single sheep' vs 'sheeps' is a possible resolution where explication is desired), as contrasted to 'cat' vs 'cats' (or 'tree' vs 'trees') which can have the opposite potential problem trying to be addressed.

At any rate, I'm wondering how linguistically to express existence unto some object or objects (quantity = cardinality or amount := >0) possessing a common set of characteristic[s]. I am also wondering if there is an optimal way to express similar concept with a vacuous existence status explicitly, e.g. "Some\All our milk from last month is spoiled [although there might not be any of said milk remaining]".

Semantic roles of 'direct object'

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 01:21 AM PDT

What are the primary semantic roles of 'direct object'? In particular, I was wondering what the semantic roles of 'direct object' are in such sentences as:

They crossed the river.
He promised her that he would do it.
He did not mention the matter at all.
She left her room.
He would say nothing.
They ate the pie.

Is this the correct use of percentages? "600% smaller"

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 09:53 AM PDT

"600% smaller when compared to GIF"

This doesn't make sense. I can understand 600% larger (it is 6 times larger), but not 600% smaller. If it is acceptable English, what does it mean? 1/6 the size? I am seeing this construct more and more often.

What does 'only' represent in following sentences?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 04:08 AM PDT

What does the word 'only' represent in the following sentences:

  1. I can only dream of becoming someone like Dr. Stone.

  2. I can only do this for so long.

Is it correct to say: "I got plunged into a mass of struggling bodies that were swimming..."

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 07:01 AM PDT

Is it correct to say: "I got plunged into a mass of struggling bodies that were swimming...". My doubt is about the correctness of the expression "to get plunged".
Thank you for your help!

Having + past tense as a subject in a sentence?

Posted: 30 Aug 2021 10:04 PM PDT

is it possible to use the form "having + past tense" as a subject in a sentence? For example, is it grammatically correct to say:

Having applied at the right time resulted in getting an admission.

Is having applied considered the subject in this sentence? My gut feeling tells me this sentence is correct, but I would like to be 100% sure. Thank you for help.

Best regrads, Kate

Type of usage/accuracy

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 03:07 AM PDT

As the boy tames the wild bird, it evokes pleasure in him away from his hardship in society; the bird is bettering us here.

verb gerund or present participle: bettering

improve on or surpass (an existing or previous level or achievement).

Bird (animal) substituting human failure: that is what it means.

Can this clause be reduced as the bird bettering us here and use a comma instead of a semi-colon.

Or is that wrong.

Use of articles - I passed with a/the percentage of 80?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 12:01 AM PDT

If I want to write I got 80 percent, which of these two is the correct way to do so?

  1. I passed with a percentage of 80.

  2. I passed with the percentage of 80.

How to positively describe something, such as a war memorial, which doesn't invoke positive feelings?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 12:45 AM PDT

If I wanted to express that something such as a holocaust memorial was good to visit I would want to avoid saying something such as "it was great" or "I enjoyed visiting it".

Is there a word that can positively describe something like a memorial without suggesting it was pleasurable?

Some words I've considered, but do not quite fit my needs:

  • Tasteful: Something could be tasteful, and I could still wish I hadn't visited it.

  • Thought provoking has the same issue, as it doesn't really describe the quality of the experience.

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

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 02:20 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,

How can one choose between "tunable" and "tuneable"?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 08:05 AM PDT

Both "tunable" and "tuneable" seem to be in common usage.

Is there a source which can be used to justify a preference for one or the other for general usage, possibly as a function of whether one is considering a particular nationality or dialect of English?

What's the etymology of the word "zilch"?

Posted: 31 Aug 2021 09:35 AM PDT

What's the origin of the word "zilch" and how it came to mean nothing?
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