Thursday, September 30, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

What is the difference between "I was" and "I were"? [migrated]

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 09:12 AM PDT

I was reading a novel when I came across "I were". I know that we use I with "was". So can anyone explain this usage? Situations and examples will be helpful.

What is the meaning of the word 'Shewerd'? [closed]

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 07:03 AM PDT

It is the name of my english medium school and even they never told us its meaning?

Book recommendation to 8-year old non-native girl [closed]

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 06:01 AM PDT

I would like to ask you for advice.

What book would you recommend to my 8-year old daughter?

I'm trying to teach her reading. We are not natives but she can speak fluently. She has read all Ladybird Tales quite easily so I bought her "The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place" - which is a very nice book but she doesn't like it. The flowery language and the lack of a real story (at least at the beginning) are too much for her.

She would like something more filled with a story, more straight, preferably with animals. Does anybody have any advice - a book you liked or a book your kids like?

Many thanks in advance.

The gardener ____ grass whole of yesterday afternoon (Fill the correct tense of the word cut) [closed]

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 06:04 AM PDT

The options are-
a) had been cutting
b) had cut
c) was cutting
d) is cutting

What is the correct answer? The first and third options seem to fit but I think that the first one seems to be most appropriate. I do not think that my teacher would give a question with 3 correct answers. He has a PHD in English and seems to be quite knowledgable about the subject.

Should there be a 'the' after grass and before whole? Normally 'the whole of' is used but here putting 'the' before gardener and before whole seems incorrect. Is it a typing error?

The verb in a condition to the question [migrated]

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 04:58 AM PDT

If a couple go to a restaurant together, do you think they should each pay half the bill?

What do we say go here instead of goes? It is a couple, why wouldn't it "goes"? Could anybody link the rules how we form such questions?

Thank you.

Usage of the continuous aspect in these sentences?

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 05:00 AM PDT

I've been learning English for some years now, and I still couldn't wrap my head around how to properly use the continuous aspect. I did a bit of research before posting this question, desperately trying to make some sense of this, and I ended up with the continuous aspect generally indicates the action is not completed at the time of speaking or something along those lines. But I don't think that applies to these sentences.

Another overlooked consideration is whether they will be teaching in a monolingual or a multilingual classroom setting.

Adult students may be arriving to your class tired after a long day at work.

I was sick before filming this video, so I might be coughing a bit during my reaction.

I will probably be running through this video again after the first viewing.

I've been noting down similar ones because they don't match what the usual grammar books have taught me, which is just so mind-boggling. Until this morning, I remembered what a great teacher of mine once shared with me, utilizing the lyrics from "Way Back Into Love".

And if I open my heart again, I guess I'm hoping you'll be there for me in the end

My teacher said I'm hoping here signals some uncertainty with a hint of fear and anxiety in the girl's mind when she sang that. It would be a different story if she worded it as I hope.

So I'm wondering if that's the answer I've been searching for to save me from the confusion brought in by the sentences above? Thank you.

And is the difference between "I write this to..." and "I am writing this to..." when one begins an email, in a way, also based on how the continuous aspect work in those examples?

The British writer or British writer

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 04:43 AM PDT

I know this sounds dumb but I have just come across this sentence:

The book was Jude the Obscure, a novel by the British writer Thomas Hardy.

So the phrase "British writer" is preceded by the article "the". But I am wondering if it is acceptable to omit the article because I have seen a lot of people doing it. (a novel by British writer Thomas Hardy)

What does dung-dropping mean？

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 09:08 AM PDT

Protect fields from what?

"Hairy, squirmy, squeaky little rats! They've infested the plantation since the storm.

The inspectors will ask, if we can't protect our fields from those dung-dropping sugar-eaters, how can we protect them from skooma-brewing thieves?"

This text is from a game. And I'm trying to translate it to Chinese.

But the word "dung-dropping" is very confusing. At least I have three interpretations of it.

  1. Straightforward. It means those rats are pooping.
  2. Extended meaning. Like "jaw-dropping" and "name-dropping".
  3. Pun. Dung also means something filthy. So can "dung-dropping" be understood as terrible or dirty?

English is not my first language. If there is a problem with my wording, I hope everyone could correct me.

What are the different categories of grammar mistakes

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 02:29 AM PDT

I am comparing two editions of an English language book, and making notes of what the changes were between them.

In each case, I need to indicate a reason for the change, but I don't know which word to use to describe that change type in all cases.

  1. "have nto" => "have not" = Spelling error
  2. "must have" => "must not have" = ?
  3. "should have have" => "should have" = ?
  4. "And now: I must go" => "And now, I must go" = ?

Thank you.

Effect called when humans overvalue one good event after series of Bad events and Overexaggeration one single bad event after series of Good events

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 09:40 AM PDT

What is the effect called on humans when

When you have seen series of bad events happen to you, and then the next tend to overvalue an negligible good thing happening as a gratitude or grand success or preciously value it

Similarly

When you have seen good events (things) happening to you, you tend to over-exaggerate (have negative effect for) an negligible negative thing happening as a insult or grand failure (you just can't digest it)

what is the difference between "doing something" vs "having something done to you" [migrated]

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 04:43 AM PDT

I know this sounds like an impressively easy answer but here's the problem.

I am in a pickle due to grammar and I can't for the life of me find my answer anywhere online.

I have had a friend make the claim that saying:

"I worked on experimenting new things within a company" is the same (just different semantics) as saying "Experiments were performed on me within a company"

I know there's a proper term for this where one is an active voice, doing something and the other is a passive voice, having something done to you but I don't know what specifically it is called so I can't look up the proper terminology or lesson to teach why the two scenarios are extremely different and depressingly enough it's putting a strain on a friendship of mine.

Please help. I just want to know what is grammatically correct and I need it explained in simple terms to someone who is not an english major.

once, present, and present perfect

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 09:20 AM PDT

I intend to say that the homework can be reviewed anytime after the point in time when the student submitted it. Is the following sentence correct in that sense?

Once the homework has been submitted, it can be checked by the teacher.

"Data Yum Yum" vs. "Yum Yum Data"? [closed]

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 01:29 AM PDT

We are trying to come up with a brand name for our business in the data niches. What would be the perception differences or semantic implications of such reverse forms:

"Data Yum Yum" vs. "Yum Yum Data"  "Data Stellar" vs. "Stellar Data"

We are not a native English company so this seems tricky to us. While we like "Data Yum Yum" and "Data Stellar" better because they appear to be larger in meaning? Or more inspiring? But we see people using "Yum Yum Data" and "Stellar Data" more often.

Why?

We think "Yum Yum Data" and "Stellar Data" are fixated in semantics as nouns thus not quite inspiring. Is this perception correct?

So we might want to go with the less popular options, "Data Yum Yum" and "Data Stellar", would this be weird to English-speaking users? Or would they tend to remember them as the reverse forms? If so, we'd be better off sticking with the popular options.

Thanks!

What’s the scope of a verb with the plural of a noun?

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 02:18 AM PDT

When using verb with the plural of a noun, does the verb apply to each one individually or to the group collectively?

The men are working hard

Does this mean that each man is working hard, or that the men are working hard collectively, i.e a few men may not work hard?

My friends have a job

I consider this sentence to mean that each friend has a job, but is that correct?

Use of need in the sentence [closed]

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 11:11 PM PDT

'All right... but you'll need to help me, Sirius,' said Lupin, 'I only know how it began...'

What's the difference between this and "I need your help". That one sound like "the other person is going to need Lupin's help.

I don't understand.

Should we need "Would" in the below sentence correct [closed]

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 09:55 PM PDT

"Work hard like a man would do"

When I read this sentence I was confused why would someone use would in the sentence. Is it correct to say, "work hard like a man does"?

Informal English sentence correction

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 08:04 AM PDT

What you gotta hose for?

  1. Is is correct, can I use this sentence in informal english?

  2. How can I say this sentence formally?

Is Merriam-Webster wrong about sympathy and empathy?

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 01:57 AM PDT

According to Merriam-Webster:

In general, 'sympathy' is when you share the feelings of another; 'empathy' is when you understand the feelings of another but do not necessarily share them.

This seems at odds with the information given in the answers to How can empathy be distinguished from sympathy?, which states that:

With sympathy, you feel sorry that someone else has experienced something bad even if you have no idea how they feel. With empathy, if they are sorrowful, you feel their sorrow.

Is Merriam-Webster wrong?

Is it grammatically incorrect if I use "be" instead of "are" in the following passage?

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 04:43 AM PDT

It is inevitable that their decisions are final.

I'm not sure if "inevitable" is a subjunctive adjective and if we can use "be" instead of "are" in the sentence above.

declining reputation, worsening reputation

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 06:20 AM PDT

I am trying to write a two-word phrase. The second word is "reputation." The first word is a modifier; it will signal that a reputation is getting worse. "Worsening reputation" fits this description -- but it seems clunky and unidiomatic to me. Is there a better alternative?

"Declining reputation" came to mind, but I am not sure that it's appropriate. A reputation can be in decline, but can it be declining? Perhaps it's fine; I am not sure.

"Decreasing reputation" is not appropriate here. I wouldn't write "increasing reputation" to suggest that someone's reputation is getting better (though I might consider it if I wanted to suggest that someone was becoming better-known).

"Deteriorating reputation" might make sense, but "deteriorating" is just too many syllables.

"In the first instance" ... active in contemporary populations?

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 05:42 AM PDT

On a site, I happened to use the phrase "In the first instance" ...

enter image description here

(Not that this is relevant, but notice the many upvotes suggesting that presumably, it reaches baseline understandability in a typical mixed-language, mixed-age, mixed-continent SE audience.)

I was utterly astounded that someone did not know the phrase,

enter image description here

Astonishingly, more people had not heard the phrase; my total astonishment/disgust with the Youth Of Today, etc. continued when an otherwise highly literate user figured it may be "regional" or such ...!

enter image description here

In particular: there was a (to me, completely bizarre) thought that it is more "descriptive than proscriptive" (or, something?)

enter image description here

My questions (here on the "Excellent English SE site") are

  1. Could it be this ordinary phrase is falling out of popularity/meaning? If so since when? (Kids of the 60s? 90s? 10s?) Is there any real way to know this? Does it appear in Harry Potter?

  2. Is there anything to the "unfamiliar in action sentences" concept? (i.e., as I understand the commenter's comment, "ITFI X happened" versus "ITFI do X".)

Origin of the slang "L7"

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 12:02 AM PDT

What's the origin of the (I believe Brit) slang "L7"?

In particular what decade (or even century) did this come from?

Region?

Footnote - entirely possible it is not British; IDK. Could have an earlier origin?

Idea and preposition

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 05:00 AM PDT

I just need to have a better understanding of when and how to use the following prepositions with their corresponding word:

  1. Idea about
  2. Idea of
  3. can you use the preposition "about" with the word "understand/understanding"?

Thank you!

Quoting multiple sentences in a short quote. No interruption

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 03:07 AM PDT

I've encountered this grammar several times while proofreading academic papers. There is a tendency among authors to use inline quotes with multiple sentences quoted. For example,

John cited Powell's belief that the search for 'life on other planets has been a disaster. Now is the time to cut funding to the programme.'

My question is two-fold. (1) Is it even possible to have two sentences within this kind of inline quote? And (2) if you can, how do you treat the punctuation in British English. In other words, should the full stop go inside or outside the quote marks.

I consulted the Chicago, APA and MLA handbooks/guides, as well as the punctuation guide and Butcher's copyediting book. None of these seem to address this issue, always showing how to quote for one sentence quotations or block quotes. This leads me to believe you can't quote multiple sentences in a inline quote couched in a sentence. But if this is the case (3) how does one punctuate/rewrite a sentence like this to convey the meaning of the author correctly?

The three options I've thought of is (1) an ellipsis and putting the final full stop outside of the quote marks

John cited Powell's belief that the search for 'life on other planets has been a disaster . . . now is the time to cut funding to the programme'.

or breaking the quote apart

John cited Powell's belief that the search for 'life on other planets has been a disaster'. 'Now is the time to cut funding to the programme.'

or, a third re-written option

John cited that the search for 'life on other planets has been a disaster', part of Powell's belief that 'now is the time to cut funding to the programme'

I don't feel the third option really reflects what was intended, and moreover, my question is more general and is intended to reflect multiple examples where this occurs.

Any help is appreciated.

By which, to which, at which, to whom: are these relative pronouns in adjective clauses?

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 10:04 PM PDT

From experience, I know that:

which, who, where, why, whom, there, that

are relative pronouns but I wonder about the expressions:

'by which', 'to which', 'at which', 'to whom

Are these also relative pronouns in an adjective clause?

Example: this is the lab to which I go everyday.

Here I believe which is the only relative pronoun: not the combined words to which. I think that to is just a preposition modifying the relative pronoun meaning.

Is there anything that cannot be called a thing?

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 05:12 AM PDT

I understand the contradiction in my title and this post is exactly about that.

Considering the definitions of a noun by Oxford and by Cambridge, an idea is very possibly a thing. My question is whether anything is not a thing? I have seen the definitions of a thing at Oxford and other places but these are confusing to me.

My question is two-fold:

  1. Is 'thing' a word we use to describe anything that we can imagine and is possible? (Both by definition and in casual social settings)
  2. Is the fact that the word 'thing' is part of the words everything and anything make every possible concept a thing?

They are kind of the same question but I would appreciate a slightly different outlook to answer each. Thanks!

Note: To be clear, I am asking about the actual definitions of these words and the usage of the word 'thing'. Please read the tags.

Edit: So far, the closest I have got to answers are:

  • Concepts that involve more than a singular unit of itself cannot seem to be called a thing. A thing can be a collection of things however (eg. keyboards are not a thing but are things. As are the keys that compose them. Individually, they are a thing though.)
  • We usually call solid instances things but this is not a rule at all. (eg. the sun, a bottle of water, an empty ballon vs. a filled balloon, etc...)
  • Scale seems to matter. Something we might call a thing from afar might not be a thing up close (eg. the sun, a city, a person, reflections, etc...)
  • What's next?

Why do we qualify "dish washer" or "car wash" but not "clothes washer"?

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 10:51 PM PDT

In theory, any mechanical device that is used to wash another object could be called a "washing machine". However, the term (at least in the US) is almost exclusively used for machines that wash clothes.

Machines that was dishes and silverware are "dish washers". A Machine that washes automobiles is a "car wash". But a machine that washes clothes is just a "washing machine".

How did that generic term come to be so completely identified with a specific type of washing machine?

Other academic field distinctions like math vs maths

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 09:16 AM PDT

Growing up in the US, I was taught to say "math" and the British "maths" sounded very awkward to me until I noticed mathematics had an 's' at the end, and it occurred to me that it could be considered plural. (To any British reading this, we use the full word "mathematics" in a singular sense also.) I suppose from this perspective, algebra is a math, calculus is a math, topology is a math, etc., though it seems to me that a Brit doing only algebra would still say they are doing maths.

From this new perspective, it occurred to me that physics must be plural as well, but I suppose it would be more granulated. The various physical phenomena themselves (comparable to theorems I suppose) would be too "small" to constitute a single subject (comparable to algebra), and various related phenomena would be grouped together into subjects for study and specialization. (Perhaps this is why we both abbreviate it as the plural physics ... er, wait.)

I looked around for other examples of singular vs plural fields of study and couldn't find much. Biology, chemistry, history, etc. all seem to be singular and follow a different naming pattern. One can study art, or study the arts, and an expert in the field might care about the distinction.

So here's what I'm wondering. Are there other good examples of plural fields of study, especially ones that in various nations (Australia, English as used in India(?), ...) are treated differently with respect to singular/plural?

If someone can publish one comprehensive answer, that would be great, but otherwise I'm guessing the localized info will trickle in from many different people, in which case this will probably work better as a community wiki where we can edit all the various information into one good answer.

What's the origin of "throwing someone under the bus"?

Posted: 30 Sep 2021 02:48 AM PDT

What's the origin of the phrase "to throw someone under the bus" or "so-and-so threw me under the bus?" (in the sense of betrayal)? It seems like a very specific phrase not to come from some specific incident.

How are bracket ellipsis [...] used in quotations?

Posted: 29 Sep 2021 10:49 PM PDT

I see this type of syntax often, but I do not know how, when or where they should be used.

"It is the case that [...] the inconvenience is altogether imaginary."

Is it okay to use if I need to insert a quotation into an essay, but the quote is long and I want to omit the irrelevant parts? Am I allowed to use the syntax multiple times per quotation ?
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)