Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange |
- I'm not sure what "drawing parallels" means?
- Why this sentence need to add "within" after "from"?
- Using only the necessary parts of the fact just to prove the point
- (*An) astute businessman though he was,...: (*The) actual perpretators though they were,
- Can "To educate a professional" mean "To teach someone the profession"?
- "Contempt is the refuge of ..." [closed]
- How to pronounce /ɹɾɚ/ in American English?
- “Has only been living” vs “Has been only living” [duplicate]
- When "humane" doesn't mean "compassionate"
- Which one is the correct usage of advice? [closed]
- What is the difference between "bustling," "vibrant," and "lively"? [closed]
- When I said bikers is my type or when I said bikers are my type [closed]
- Differentiate between present simple and present continuous? [closed]
- What is the difference of "contort" and "distort" [closed]
- Looking for a suffix to denote paraphernalia associated with a person
- When did the change occur in meaning of Afghan from an ethnic group to "person from Afghanistan?"
- Should I add 'the' in titles?
- Is an object of a verb a complement of a verb or of a verb phrase (a predicate)?
- Can the phrase "there's no such thing as..." be used in context of time?
- Consider the question, "Aside from his pronunciation, what mistakes did he make?"
- 'Unless' in hypothetical constructions
- I'm looking for a word that describes how simply measuring something changes it
- A gift that you give to someone that is actually more a gift to yourself?
- “A government of the people, by the people, for the people”
- "Per documentation:" vs. "Per the documentation:"
- Etymology of 'teaching grandma to suck eggs'?
| I'm not sure what "drawing parallels" means? Posted: 25 Sep 2021 09:20 AM PDT In my English homework, it's written :
I'm not sure what "drawing parallels with the reading text" means, so I can't start to do my homework. Does that mean we need to draw some parallel lines between the text? Or does that mean our essay needs to be related to the text but not the exact same thing?  |
| Why this sentence need to add "within" after "from"? Posted: 25 Sep 2021 09:02 AM PDT In this sentence
It seems to me that "within" could be removed without changing the meaning. Am I wrong? What's the difference with and without "within"?  |
| Using only the necessary parts of the fact just to prove the point Posted: 25 Sep 2021 08:47 AM PDT What is the word for 'using the facts for one's own favorable use' or disregarding other points of fact just to prove the point?  |
| (*An) astute businessman though he was,...: (*The) actual perpretators though they were, Posted: 25 Sep 2021 07:28 AM PDT
Why are the articles not allowed in this structure?  |
| Can "To educate a professional" mean "To teach someone the profession"? Posted: 25 Sep 2021 06:52 AM PDT I stumbled upon an IELTS True / False question. The text is: .... Grants are available ... in the areas of music education (e.g. working with a talented music student...) ... (Cambridge IELTS 14 General - Test 3 - Second passage) and the sentence which test-taker should judge about its truth is: You can apply for a grant that will help to educate a musician My understanding was the text says the grant will help to educate someone to be a musician while the statement in question says to educate someone who is already a musician, so the statement is false. Answer sheet doesn't agree with me :) So, is it a well-known structure to use teach/educate a professional to say teach/educate the profession to somebody? And can you provide me some examples?  |
| "Contempt is the refuge of ..." [closed] Posted: 25 Sep 2021 05:23 AM PDT I am trying to finish a phrase which starts with "Contempt is the refuge of those ...". What I want to do is communicate what is at the core of contempt. I was thinking of something along the lines of "who silently wishes death to their lessers" but that might be too dramatic. Is there a more concise and less shocking way of putting this accross?  |
| How to pronounce /ɹɾɚ/ in American English? Posted: 25 Sep 2021 07:04 AM PDT I'm having issues pronouncing barter, order, harder, smarter using General American pronunciation. I can pronounce the individual sounds as well as combinations ɾɚ as in better and ɹɚ as in bearer but the sequence of the three sounds trips me up. I think the problem is that the ɹ sound puts my tongue in a position that is so high and back that I cannot produce the flap anymore, so I force it (and touch the roof of my mouth) and then it sounds like ɹdɚ. What am I doing wrong?  |
| “Has only been living” vs “Has been only living” [duplicate] Posted: 25 Sep 2021 03:03 AM PDT I encountered this question in a test today, I'm not sure about the differences between the two cases and how the native speakers will use it. Please help me.
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| When "humane" doesn't mean "compassionate" Posted: 25 Sep 2021 03:53 AM PDT I'm editing a text (by a non-native speaker of English) that is, in a broad sense, about poetry. One phrase used frequently is "humane eloquence". At first I changed "humane" to "human" in all such instances, but now I have looked it up in the OED and find a second meaning of "humane" (perhaps related to our use of "humanities" to refer to certain fields of study?):
The examples given include "humane learning", "humane disciplines", and "humane literature." My question: does this means "humane eloquence" is OK? Or am I right to correct it to "human"? Example:
PS: 50 pages in, I see that the work of poets is now being contrasted to the "miraculous eloquence" of the Quran. So – rather than "humane" – it must be "human," as contrasted to "miraculous" or divine. But happy to be corrected if that sounds wrong!  |
| Which one is the correct usage of advice? [closed] Posted: 25 Sep 2021 12:36 AM PDT
If both are correct let me know the difference between them.  |
| What is the difference between "bustling," "vibrant," and "lively"? [closed] Posted: 25 Sep 2021 12:12 AM PDT Part of my homework for a class was to describe the type of city I would like to live in. Just so that you don't think I'm completely unimaginative when it comes to description, this was not for a creative writing class. It was for a Russian class and the objective was to practice using adjectives in Russian (naturally). As is usually the case, I didn't have much time to do the homework and so, during the class, I just came up with simple adjectives I already knew. But after class, I usually try to to devote some time to reviewing the session. For all the obvious reasons, I still wanted to keep it simple, but I also wanted to try to expand my Russian vocabulary at the same time. But first I had to decide on which word in English I wanted to use. I first thought of "lively," then "vibrant," and then "bustling" and then realized I just couldn't settle on one without more information. I am leaning toward "lively" because I am familiar with the phrase "lively discussion" and know that it has a certain nuance of "intellectual" in it, but does that same meaning carry over when referring to a city? I'm least inclined to choose "bustling" because I believe it lacks the undertones of intellect that come with "lively" and the images of color that come with "vibrant." I haven't done much research on this other than take a cursory look at some definitions, but I did also run these words through Google's Ngram, first just the words themselves and then again paired with the word "city." I wasn't expecting this, but, oddly enough, the frequencies are inverted when you add the word "city." Be that as it may, I know this forum is chock full of intellectuals who have a far better command of the English language than I, so I thought I'd post this here for your invaluable insight.
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| When I said bikers is my type or when I said bikers are my type [closed] Posted: 24 Sep 2021 08:09 PM PDT What is this I don't know just help me which one is correct  |
| Differentiate between present simple and present continuous? [closed] Posted: 24 Sep 2021 06:06 PM PDT There is sentence:-
Don't you think that They net they are using at the moment can harm the dolphins. is more suitable as we say at the moment. On the other hand if we think it like it is general that they use that net then it looks to be in present simple. Both present simple and continuous forms sounds correct. Which should I use?  |
| What is the difference of "contort" and "distort" [closed] Posted: 24 Sep 2021 04:31 PM PDT I know they both mean to twist but would you use each of them for different types of sentences? And is there a difference in the words?  |
| Looking for a suffix to denote paraphernalia associated with a person Posted: 24 Sep 2021 08:08 PM PDT Can someone help me identify the below-described suffix. I feel I've seen it before, but I can't bring it to mind or locate it through my usual methods (i.e., search queries). The suffix is added to the end of a person's name and denotes paraphernalia, collectibles, memorabilia or other items associated with that person. For example, if someone is obsessed with Richard Nixon, and owns a bunch of Nixon's old letters, belongings, who knows, clothes, tape recordings, etc., you might refer to this collection as Nixon + a suffix. Like -ica, or -ia. Nixonica. But that's not right, I don't think. In any event, the effect might be facetious (or not). The suffix might also apply to items associated with a non-person, but I can't remember. It may also only work with certain names - for example, those that end in a consonant.  |
| When did the change occur in meaning of Afghan from an ethnic group to "person from Afghanistan?" Posted: 24 Sep 2021 04:40 PM PDT A related question can be found here, dealing with the usage of "Afghan" to mean "inhabitant of Afghanistan." Which term is correct — "Afghan" or "Afghani"? I'm interested in figuring out when the usage of Afghan as "an inhabitant or Afghanistan" overtook the usage of Afghan to refer to what we now call the Pashtun people. Is it possible to pinpoint how and when this change occurred?
Wikipedia describes the Durrani Dynasty as being founded by:
So, the term Afghan enters English properly referring to the ethnic Pashtuns.
A Britannica entry on the Lodī dynasty says:
The word Afghan in the entry includes a hyperlink to the entry for Pashtun. So, it is clear that the term has been both historically used and is currently being used as another term for the Pashtun people, who are only one ethnic group that makes up the inhabitants of the nation of Afghanistan. Though at some point the term also came to be used as a generic. The reason this question occurs to me is that there are quite a few people claiming that Afghan is the correct way to refer to someone from Afghanistan. It seems that logically the way to refer to someone from Afghanistan would actually be Afghanistani, in the same way we refer to people from Pakistan as Pakistanis. Compare the difference between Tajik (ethnic group) and Tajikistani (nationality), Turkmen (ethnic group) and Turkmenistani (nationality), Kurd (ethnic group) and Kurdistani (inhabitant of the region),etc. Though, Afghanistani seems to have so little traction it was not even mentioned in the related question I linked above, and appears to have no hits in Ngram. Does anyone know how and when Afghan became accepted as the way to refer to inhabitants of Afghanistan, even when they were not ethnically Afghan?  |
| Posted: 25 Sep 2021 01:09 AM PDT I am recently writing a proposal titled "Evaluating and Optimizing (the) Utility of Explanations". But I am not sure if I should include 'the' before 'Utility' in the title. Actually this question has always been bothering me. Is there any difference in the use of 'the' in titles v.s. bodies?  |
| Is an object of a verb a complement of a verb or of a verb phrase (a predicate)? Posted: 24 Sep 2021 10:03 PM PDT
Here, you is the object of the verb love. It's also a complement, because it completes the meaning of the sentence. Per Wikipedia, complement is defined as:
What is the given expression in (a)? Is it love or love you? Does you complete the meaning of the verb itself or the meaning of the predicate? Just because example (a) is elementary doesn't mean the question also is. By the same token, just because the above sentence is quoted from a wiki doesn't mean it's a bad idea to start a question based on the sentence. I believe the quoted sentence is a good place to start a serious question because it cites three authoritative references: Crystal, D. 1997. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, 4th edition, Oxford, UK: Blackwell. (75). Matthews, P. 1981. Syntax. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (142f.) Huddleston, R. 1988. English grammar: An outline. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.(note 2)  |
| Can the phrase "there's no such thing as..." be used in context of time? Posted: 24 Sep 2021 09:08 PM PDT I was wondering if the idiomatic phrase can be altered as follows...
I'm also uncertain which word bracketed above is more appropriate, assuming this usage even makes any sense.  |
| Consider the question, "Aside from his pronunciation, what mistakes did he make?" Posted: 25 Sep 2021 10:04 AM PDT
Doesn't this imply that the person asking also considers the subject's pronunciation as a mistake? How should it be rewritten to clarify that the pronunciation is not considered a mistake?  |
| 'Unless' in hypothetical constructions Posted: 25 Sep 2021 04:42 AM PDT I have been told that 'unless' can't be used in hypothetical clauses as follows: Unless Ann had studied hard, she would have failed the exam. My question is, why is using 'unless' in the conditional clause above unacceptable?  |
| I'm looking for a word that describes how simply measuring something changes it Posted: 25 Sep 2021 01:32 AM PDT An engineer friend of mine said something once like "when you measure something, you need to take into account that sometimes the measuring of the thing affects the thing's performance…" Sort of like putting a wind speed monitor on a plane might affect its trajectory or power… Is there an engineering term for this? Measurement impact? Measurement affect?  |
| A gift that you give to someone that is actually more a gift to yourself? Posted: 25 Sep 2021 10:11 AM PDT Is there a word that describes a gift that you give to someone that is actually more a gift to yourself? For example, gifting your partner tickets to a show for an artist that you like more than they do. Or gifting your kid a smartphone so that you can get a hold of them or keep track of them as you wish.  |
| “A government of the people, by the people, for the people” Posted: 24 Sep 2021 10:53 PM PDT From a famous speech:
I believe the last part is clear (for the people). But what is the difference— in meaning— between of the people (it is a genitive form?) and by the people? As for the question mark ("it is a genitive form?") I think there is no need to set it inside the parentheses.  |
| "Per documentation:" vs. "Per the documentation:" Posted: 25 Sep 2021 09:05 AM PDT I often quote the documentation of the software I am writing about on StackOverflow. Typically, I use the short phrase:
Also serving as deep link to the quoted passage, followed by the quote. Recently somebody edited a post of mine to make this:
Not the most important detail, but now I wonder which is more correct. I like to be brief, so if either is correct my preference is obvious. I am typically referring to the official documentation of the project, not just some documentation, if that should matter.  |
| Etymology of 'teaching grandma to suck eggs'? Posted: 24 Sep 2021 11:00 PM PDT This is such a strange idiom, all I could find with a Google search was the meaning of it, but not where it came from. When you're telling somebody something they already know well, it's sometimes said that you're "teaching grandma to suck eggs". Where did this phrase come from, and what is 'suck eggs' referring to?  |
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