Friday, October 15, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

What's the phrase for assuming someone else knows that you know what YOU know that you know?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 09:42 AM PDT

Example: Student Bob assumes he won't have to take an upcoming test. Bob knows everything that he will be tested on, and assumes Bob's teacher knows this.

What do you call a tyrannical person who uses soft language and protective reasoning to get people to do his bidding?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 08:40 AM PDT

This type usually guilt-trips people and appeals to emotion. It acts under the guise of safety and compassion.

You can imagine AOC's bleeding-heart expression paired with a call to build national COVID isolation facilities to quarantine the sick, or SJWs demanding more gender options when opening accounts online to be kind and considerate to their struggles.

Demagogue is close, but not the ace. Machiavellian as well. Orwellian is great, but too sequestered and demographic.

I guess gargoyle would be fitting, as they often eat that which they're meant to protect, but they're lacking the sugarcoat element and the commandeering. Sirens have the allure and the specious components, but not the bossiness. Communist carries all of the manipulative pleasantry, overprotection, and underhanded tyranny, but is tainted by the economic policy baggage.

Tall order, I know. We may have to resort to slang to encompass this.

Thanks in advance!

exhibition medals

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 09:12 AM PDT

What is the exact meaning of "exhibition medals" in the following passage? For more information, I wrote the passage in detail. It is from the book Iranian-Russian Encounters, p. 124.

Meanwhile, Wortman was using the company as a dumping-ground for imported second-hand junk (a piano, an organ, equipment for extracting natural gas, butter churns, discarded parts of public urinals) – hardly surprising, given his 'inglorious past as a salesman of exhibition medals' (an activity that had led to his banishment from Moscow), of which he bestowed vast quantities on road workers at a cost to the company of 300 roubles apiece.

Thanks very much.

what is 's in "someone's" like "this is Andrew's car" [migrated]

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 07:58 AM PDT

's in It's Thanos is short for is

's in She's gone is short for has

But I have no idea what is 's in this is Andrew's car short for?

comma before a prepositional phrase in a subordinate clause ending a sentence [closed]

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 07:44 AM PDT

Consider the sentence:

This simplification achieves that(,) in each urn of the set, each ball color occurs at most once.

Is the comma before "in"

  1. necessary,

  2. forbidden,

  3. optional without a change in the meaning, or

  4. optional with a change in the meaning

?

Why?

Although x, y OR Although y, x? Are both potentially acceptable depending on context? [closed]

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 06:24 AM PDT

I was editing some student writing when I came across this:

Student original(the actual writing) Although we were happy in the picture, we were freezing to death.

My preference:Although we were freezing to death, we were happy in the picture.

Are both of these potentially acceptable? The way I understand "although" is that after the although clause, there is an unexpected result. In this situation, for me, happiness is the unexpected result because they were happy despite the awful weather conditions. However, maybe the student means that "you might look at this photo and think everything was great, but actually, you were wrong", and that might not be wrong. The more I think about it, the more confused I get. Help!

Witness a cruel moment [in/of] nature?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 05:03 AM PDT

I'm imagining a scene where a few wolves attack a few deers.

What would be the correct form here?

I witnessed a cruel moment [in] nature.

or

I witnessed a cruel moment [of] nature.?

"..... come 2025." What's the usage of "come" here? [duplicate]

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 06:12 AM PDT

There is a conversation from a parent to the baby about its passport photograph,"We'll get you a new one come 2025".

I can sense that he means they will update their baby's passport photo at around 2025. Just wondering what's the usage of "come" here? Is it quite common in oral English when someone needs to express "close to, near to".

Thank you so much!

as to + infinitive [duplicate]

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 04:08 AM PDT

hii I was wondering if this sentence was correct "... they could feel threatened by them, feeling that technology will one day be so advanced as to replace them entirely."

^_^

Could "being" be omitted in "spend time (being) someone"?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 02:14 AM PDT

I came across a sentence in Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence that I don't quite comprehend:

They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred, and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known.

As far as I know, we can say "spend time on something / (in) doing something / being something", but I'm not aware that "being" can be omitted. Is this a grammatically correct use? Or did I get it wrong?

Thanks very much!

Talking about ratio - What is the meaning of 1 to 9 of X?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 05:08 AM PDT

This is a ratio related question.
I read in a book that "1 to 9 of water".

Does that mean that water should be nine parts?

All the electronics, singular or plural? [closed]

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 12:16 AM PDT

I want to say that all the components of my robot are inside the robot, should I use is or are?

All the electronics are hidden inside the robot, only the power cable is visible outside of it.

In French, I would use singular because we're considering Electronics as one whole stuff. But I am not sure about English.

Has been taking place vs has taken place

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 02:02 AM PDT

Yesterday I heard this:

The funeral has been taking place (TalkSport Radio).

I was wondering why "has been taking"? Was the funeral finished (it seems so), or was it still on?

What are some more descriptive words for a person who is strong and independent [closed]

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 09:20 AM PDT

I am searching for one word descriptive words for someone who is strong and independent because that is two words and I am looking for one but somehow want to incorporate both words into the same 1 word

quantifiers in comparatives adjectives

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 08:42 AM PDT

Good morning. I'd like to ask you something. I was confused about these words. They said " a bit, a little, slightly, a lot, and much" are all intensifiers in comparative sentences. But according to my research, it says they were quantifiers. I hope you can help me. Thank you so much! Have a great day!

What would "the 2021 school/fiscal year" refer to?

Posted: 14 Oct 2021 08:24 PM PDT

Generally students start the Nth grade in the fall of some calendar year Y and graduate that grade in the spring of some calendar year Y+1. Likewise if a fiscal year does not start on January 1 it would also start in a first calendar year and end in a second year.

So to avoid ambiguity one might do well to refer to "the 2021–2022 school year".

But am I correct that, if/when abbreviated this would become "the 2021 school year" (i.e. represented by the year when it started), and not "the 2022 school year" (i.e. not represented by the year when it ends)? Is the convention for fiscal years the same as for school years?

[mods: I was hoping to tag this "calendar" which seems like a potentially useful tag here, but didn't have enough rep….]

How can I describe something that is easy to improve?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 04:16 AM PDT

Say I have a person who is fond of change/prone to progress or a technology that is designed to be easily changed and improved. What is an adjective I can use to describe both or either one of them?

I am trying list the advantages of synthetic organisms and want to express that they can easily improve themselves over a short period of time, as opposed to humans.

Usage:

The key advantages of synthetic organisms are lack of emotions, apathy, ruthless pragmatism, exponential learning and [the fact that they are easy to improve]

checkmated as adjective

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 09:33 AM PDT

Is the adjective "checkmated" used?

Although it does not appear in the Cambridge dictionary or Merriam-Webster, if...

  • Person-A checkmates Person-B

  • Consequently: Person-B is checkmated!

Is 'checkmated' correctly used?

Word for the urge to speak?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 09:11 AM PDT

If "hunger" is the urge to eat and "thirst" is the urge to drink, is there a word for the urge to speak? (Or, perhaps, the desire to be heard?)

There seem to be a lot of nouns describing people who talk too much and adjectives for "talkative" (positive and negative), but I can't seem to find a word for the motive for speech.

I'm striking out in the thesaurus, can't even seem to find an entry point.

It's OK if the word is technical (for example, if it is psychology jargon). Ideally, it would be neutral in connotation. A single word would be best, but a compound word or phrase would be helpful.

What is a word like "negate" but even worse?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 08:57 AM PDT

I suspect this is going to be a "oh yeah, duh" moment, but I'm looking for a word that is like "negate," but worse. Here's an example sentence:

I could cram for this test all night, but the sleep deprivation I'd experience could negate the effort.

I believe this sentence means, "cramming for the test could be canceled out by the sleep deprivation." But what I really want to say is, "the negatives of sleep deprivation could be worse than the benefits of cramming.

Is there a word with the latter meaning that could be swapped out for negate in the example sentence?

EDIT: I probably wasn't clear because a lot of the answers are giving me stronger words with the same meaning of "negate." But I'm looking for a word with a different, yet related, meaning.

May be tagging it with synonyms because the confusion. But whenever I look up synonyms in a thesaurus, the list includes words with closely related meanings, too.

Negate, nullify, void, etc. can be interpreted as bringing you back to zero. I'm not looking for that, I'm looking for a word that fits the first example and means net negative.

What is the name for the transformation of "good on you" to "onya"?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 09:41 AM PDT

In Australian slang, there is a word "Onya" which is used in the exact same way as "Good on you".

What transformations have taken place in the formation of this slang? I'm finding it difficult to see since "Good on you" is not a single word. I think there is vowel reduction "you" -> "ya" (schwa phoneme). But what else is there, elision, shortening?

Origin of the exact phrase "cold iron"?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 09:06 AM PDT

Loosely inspired by this closed rpg.stackexchange question titled "What is Cold Iron actually? — Forget what it is; let's talk about the origin of the set phrase "cold iron" in English!

Rudyard Kipling's poem "Cold Iron" (c. 1910) may well have popularized the exact phrase in today's pop culture, but it (1) is extremely recent and (2) isn't directly related to the fair folk.

This great rpg.net thread points to Robert Kirk's The Secret Commonwealth (written c. 1691 but published only(?) in 1893), chapter 1, which uses the exact phrase:

The Tramontains to this Day put Bread, the Bible, or a piece of Iron, in Womens Beds when travelling, to ſave them from being thus ſtollen; and they commonly report, that all uncouth, unknown Wights are terrifyed by nothing earthly ſo much as by cold Iron.

So, did Robert Kirk actually coin this poetic turn of phrase? Or can it be traced back farther?

The defining characteristic here is that we're not just talking about how supernatural beings dislike iron; we're talking specifically about textual sources that describe the elf-repellent iron as cold (regardless of what you think the source means by that).

Why the shift to past perfective when the whole sentence is in the present?

Posted: 14 Oct 2021 11:05 PM PDT

I was looking at Collins' definition of double-cross:

If someone you trust double-crosses you, they do something which harms you instead of doing something they had promised to do.

So we have double-crosses and harms in present simple, but then the last choice of tense and aspect is had promised in past perfective. Can someone explain to me why it cannot be present perfective? What is the point of reference in time for this past perfective?

it's high time you {past perfect} something

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 02:03 AM PDT

I know that usually it should be "It's high time someone did something."

However, what about "the past perfect"? Is it possible to use? If yes, when should it be done and for what effect?

"It's high time someone had done something."

Here are examples from literature:

It was high time he had written, Dick thought; it was high time he had come.

Lieutenant Stewart replied, in substance, that the British officers had too long trampled on the rights and liberties of his countrymen, and it was high time they had learned to respect the rights and persons of an independent nation.

I told him, it was high time he had ended the course he was pursuing.

Use of The Verb "LIKE"

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 07:44 AM PDT

Consider the following sentence, please:

I don't like these comments coming from you.

How would a native speaker of English analyze the above sentence? I tried to analyze it myself in the following ways:

1) I don't like these comments that are coming from you, with a relative clause at the end and probably an emphasis on the phrase 'these comments.'

2) I don't like these comments' coming from you, with an apostrophe after 'comments', meaning "I don't like the fact that they are coming from you." 'coming from you' functions as a gerund phrase here.

3) I don't like (these comments) and also (the fact that they're coming from you), with "LIKE" as a di-transitive verb and the two bracketed parts as its two objects. An analogy can be drawn with the verb "see" in the following sentence: "I saw him doing this."

So, my question is: To a native speaker, which one/ones seems/seem correct. I know a proper context could limit the number of analyses of the given sentence. But, without a given context, in how many possible ways the above sentence could be interpreted by a native speaker is of my concern. Thank you in advance.

How to structure the speech of one character when it consists of two linked but independent phrases

Posted: 14 Oct 2021 10:02 PM PDT

If you were writing a quote structured like this... 'You were right Izzy!', said Ted, 'there is something we can do.'

… would be correct to have a fullstop after 'Ted' and a capital letter for 'there' (because it is two separate phrases) or would it be correct to write it as I have typed it above (because they are still spoken by the same person and so are connected, and a capital is not required)?

Also, would this alter if the example were something like 'It's no use,' said Fred, 'go on without me.' (e.g. would that need a full stop and a capital after 'Fred', or does the above work?)

Thank you!

Why do some people say "v" as "w"?

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 08:10 AM PDT

I've noticed that Germans and Indians will sometimes say "/w/ector space" instead of "/v/ector space".

I get that in German "w" is pronounced /v/. But "vau" (German "v") is pronounced like /f/. So what would make people pronounce an English "vee" like an English "double-u"? (As far as I know, German doesn't even have an "English double-u" letter; if they want to indicate that sound, they would use a "u" like English "quick" or Spanish "güero".)

I've also noticed that it's only in certain cases, for example I haven't heard Indians or Germans pronounced "However" as "Hovewer".

The use of “So X as to [be] Y”

Posted: 15 Oct 2021 04:14 AM PDT

First of all, note that this is not a duplicate question of another one asking about the usage of so as to, since this one is asking about the structure of so . . . as to. . . .

I understand this might have been a better question at the English Language Learners site, since I'm not a native English speaker. I am asking it here since I want to get some professional advice in regard to this question, since I don't seem to have found anything similar to this on the Internet.

At the Oxford Dictionaries Online (OD) I have found the following definition of ludicrous:

So foolish, unreasonable, or out of place as to be amusing.

I understand the phrase so as to, simply meaning in order to and preceding the purpose for which an action is done.

So by itself is just therefore, hence, thus, or a way of emphasizing an adjective or adverb.

As to in itself means with regard to or according to, as pointed out in the Free Dictionary.

In the OD definition of ludicrous, the use of so looks fair to me, that is, it clearly emphasizes the high extent to which something is foolish or unreasonable.

The use of as to doesn't work in any way I've mentioned in this case (neither as in with regard to nor according to). I think the dictionary I've referred to has missed one, if not more, meaning of the phrase as to.

In this case, it appears to have likely been used as an alternative to that when used in the form So X, that Y, meaning something is or happens X (a combination of adjectives or adverbs) enough to cause Y to happen.

Of course, I don't mean that in the structure so X as to Y the phrase as to is absolutely equivalent to that, since substituting as to with that changes the structure of Y.

Does all this mean that the phrase as to is a great alternative to that (although changing the structure of Y) whenever the sentence is of the form so X, that Y (where X is a combination of one or more adjectives or adverbs)?

I am new here and so I'm not too familiar with the variety of existing tags here, so if anyone sees an additional one that would fit, please add it to this question. I would also be glad to see some other corrections of my grammar.
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