Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

What are common structural words called?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 08:59 AM PDT

I'm thinking of words that appear in sentences which exist primarily to give structure. So examples might be:

"a" "of" "and" "are"

For example, when searching on Google for a phrase like "catch a butterfly", the results list will show bold highlights of the exact phrase, or isolated occurrences of "Catch" or "Butterfly" but it will not bold isolated occurrences of those structural words listed above.

Is there a name for this type of word? Also, is there a list of these words somewhere? I ask because I'm implementing a similar highlighting feature and want to exclude all the single occurrences of words which aren't germane to the searched term.

Can "why" ever be used as a subordinating conjunction?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 08:45 AM PDT

I posted an image of a list of subordinating conjunctions for my students today, and one of them asked about "why" on the list. I couldn't think of any example where "why" would be used as a subordinating conjunction.

There are multiple lists out there with "why" included.

Am I taking crazy pills? Is "why" a subordinating conjunction?

What does "invited" mean in this sentence? [closed]

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 08:05 AM PDT

I think the word "invited" means to get ready. So, De Bruyne get ready to shoot. Is my understanding right?

De Bruyne was invited to shoot as Lloris palmed his drive from range to safety but there would be no dramatic denouement as the Tottenham fans took the acclaim at the final whistle.

Single word covering "conclusions" and "implications"

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 10:20 AM PDT

I have a PhD defence ahead and trying different ways to improve my presentation. I will be expected to present conclusions (long and hard to follow sentences on a slide) and implications (to show that my work has an impact for the field/current practice).

My idea is to combine these two, meaning that I will present conclusions and implications together. Is there a single word for "conlusions-implications"?

What does "getting beyond" mean in this sentence? [closed]

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 07:12 AM PDT

I read this match report and don't understand the meaning of the phrase "getting beyond".

34min - De Bruyne has to score
Another great opening for City and Kevin De Bruyne really should have put that away.

Yet another City attack down their left, getting beyond Milner, and it's a fine cross hung up by Foden with De Bruyne unmarked and charging in at the back post. He makes the ball but directs his header over the top.

Jolt to one's senses (shock/make someone sensible) [closed]

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 06:39 AM PDT

Context- Black has been trying to convince Harry that he is guilty that Harry doubt.

These words jolted Harry to his senses.

Even after that, he still questions Black.

So I am confused if it means "made Harry behave sensibly" or "extremely shocked him"? Can "to the senses" mean "extremely"?

Is the noun "Nash equilibrium" countable? [closed]

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 06:21 AM PDT

I am working in the field of Game theory. I use the word Nash equilibrium intensively, but I always wonder about this word countability.

I think the word Nash equilibrium should be countable. Because for a given game, we can have more than one Nash equilibrium, but I've never seen anyone use words like Nash equilibriums or any other plural form.

So, if this word is countable, what is its plural form. If it is uncountable, how do we express the situation of multiple Nash equilibrium?

What does "pinch it off" mean in this sentence?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 05:58 AM PDT

LIVERPOOL 0-0 MAN CITY

21: SAVE! Bernardo pinches it off Henderson and after a wonderful mazy run, he puts through Foden and he only has Alisson to beat but the Liverpool stopper spreads himself well to make a crucial save. What play from Silva!

What does "pinches it off" mean in the highlighted sentence?

Beat me to doing?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 09:48 AM PDT

I always hear:

You beat me to it.

as a fixed expression. However, is it correct to use a verb instead of "it", e.g.:

You beat me to replying to the email.

?

The good/better/best part of

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 08:59 AM PDT

  1. The good part of the year.
  2. The better part of the year.
  3. The best part of the year.
  4. The nice part of the year (If we say so).

What is the difference, if any? My research: According to the dictionaries, better/best part means the same thing, which I doubt. The good part definition is vaguely similar. And the nice part is something I have come up of my own.

'Miscellaneous': must be followed by a plural count noun

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 09:53 AM PDT

Garner's fourth reads

Miscellaneous must be followed by a plural count noun; it does not work with an abstract mass noun. Exceptions are set phrases such as miscellaneous shower/income.

and

An abstract noun refers to something that has no physical existence; sometimes the meaning of an abstract noun changes from singular to plural <kindness–kindnesses>. Some mass nouns can also be count nouns on occasion <choose only the best meats>.

According to Wiktionary it comes from the Latin nominative masculine singular of miscellāneus.

What is Garner's statement based on then?

Secondly, regarding the definition of abstract noun, I don't understand what the pair kindness(es) is referring to.

Interruption Comma "yet then somehow"?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 04:20 AM PDT

Here are the examples:

He repeated the experiment in exactly the same way yet expecting different results.

He repeated the experiment in exactly the same way then somehow expecting contradictory results.

These can be combined for effect:

He repeated the experiment in exactly the same way yet then somehow expecting different results.

According to the rules of commas, to my understanding, both "then" and "somehow" are interruptions and can safely be omitted, but It seems to me that they are separate interruptions. So, do I separate them by a comma or not? Or was my analysis wrong all together?

...yet, then, somehow, ... or  ...yet, then somehow, ...

Thank you.

Are multiple hyphenations allowed in extending compound words like "well-controlled"? [duplicate]

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 05:29 AM PDT

It is common to write the phrase "well controlled" as a single, hyphenated adjective, "well-controlled".

If my intention is to place additional adverbs in front of the hyphenated compound word "well-controlled", should I expand this compound word with additional hyphenations, i.e. are the compound words "very-well-controlled", or "not-very-well-controlled" correct?

This question doesn't ask about linking two separate compound words as pointed out in the supposedly duplicate question, but rather linking additional adverbs to a single hyphenated compound word.

"lose the hide and hair on him", what does this mean?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 02:54 AM PDT

I was reading Roland's Song and I encountered this part:

stand everything, the great heat, the great cold,
lose the hide and hair on him for his good lord.

Do you know what "lose the hide and hair on him for his lord" means here?

Isn't there a tense inconsistency in the following context?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 02:36 AM PDT

In the movie Knives Out (2019), Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) says,

The body is discovered early the next morning. The police, the medical examiner, the family, everyone swarmed in, and there is no possible way you can get to Marta's medical bag to retrieve the vials.

Isn't there a tense inconsistency here? Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but I think "swarmed in" is not correct here, given that the story is described in present tense.

Is this sentence below grammatical?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 06:14 AM PDT

Emotions like Governor Malloy's and mine seem primal—hardwired into us, reflexively deployed, shared with all our fellow humans. When triggered, they seem to unleash themselves in each of us in basically the same way.My sadness was like Governor Malloy's sadness was like the crowd's sadness.

I thought in English there can not be two predicates without "and" linking them.

Is "surefast" a word?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 04:06 AM PDT

I was under the impression that "surefast", basically meaning "sure" or "certain", was a word. A sentence example would be "Learning is a surefast way to success".

However, I can't find it in any dictionaries. It doesn't appear in Merriam-Webster, Cambridge Dictionary, Dictionary.com, Lexico, or Macmillan Dictionary.

Google results seem to mostly show product names, though there are also some examples of actual usage in the way I expected.

For example, in The Legacy of Women's Uplift in India: Contemporary Women Leaders in the Arya Samaj, a 1999 journal article by Stacey Burlet:

this enables them to exercise their moral and emotional superiority and to assert 'proper' Hindu values, the only surefast way to get men to fulfil their 'national' duties

Or in The 5 Steps to the HEART of Leadership, a blog post by Ricky Lien:

And acquiring better habits is a surefast way of moving ahead in your personal development towards leadership development.

I was wondering if this was perhaps an eggcorn, or maybe just slang.

Thanks.

Get one's hands on Scabbers [migrated]

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 02:16 AM PDT

Are you trying to say you broke out of Azkaban just to get your hands on Scabbers?

My question pertains to the use of the idiom "get one's hands on". It means to get or find something.

Suppose I found the location of someone who is in another city, so technically I cannot touch them with hands, would it be appropriate to use this idiom in that case?

What is the difference between "to be" and "must/need/should be"?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 10:05 AM PDT

Is there a difference in meaning in the following example:

  • Select the [x] button next to the email address that is to be deleted
  • Select the [x] button next to the email address that should be deleted

When do you really use "to be"?

Thanks a lot!

'(s)' or '/s' at the end of a word to denote one or many [duplicate]

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 12:47 AM PDT

(It's so difficult to google this.)

As in, "I will look at the document(s) later". I've seen both used, I used to use '/s', but have replaced it with '(s)'.

Which is (more) correct?

What does this sentence mean "painting of individuals with inner lives that we recognise as our own"

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 06:12 AM PDT

"It was a crucible of the Renaissance, nurturing artists such as Giotto, who pioneered the painting of individuals with inner lives that we recognise as our own. "

What kind of paintings are these being described as ? Did he make abstract paintings of the souls of individals or is there some other meaning attached to it ?

For once I thought that he started to make paintings of individuals having inner lives (souls) but somehow it isn't making sense. Also is the interpretation of inner lives as souls correct or does it mean something else here in context ?

Potentially ambiguous sentence/understanding

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 03:25 AM PDT

I was reading the Monty Hall problem to discuss it with a friend.

The problem is defined as:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

And a whole documentation about this problem is available (for instance) here: Wikipedia: Monty Hall problem

When discussing it with my friend, the sentence "You pick a door, and the host opens another door" caused a conflict between us because my friend (who speaks English and is in the US) told me that this means that the host opens the initial door and another one since, the action consists in "opening another" which means it applies to the initial and another one.

My understanding of this sentence is " what is opened ?" -> another door. How is defined "another door" -> it is a door different than the initial one. So what is opened ? a door different than the first one.

Thus my understanding is that after I chose a door, the host opens a single one, that is different than mine (thus the second or third in the problem situation).

My friend tells me that my reasoning is incorrect because is not how English works (and she tells me she knows this better since I am not a native English speaker). However since, I know this logical problem pretty well, I was quite confident with my understanding and look for a strong grammatical/syntaxic/semantic/linguistic/morphologic/etc... arguments/proof that could provide a definitive understanding of this and that I could share with my friend and definitively convince them.

Is there a single word for two phrases which are synonymous with one another?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 09:05 AM PDT

Is there a single concise word for two phrases which have the same or nearly the same meanings as one another? Lately, I have found myself Googling phrases like "loath to admit synonym" or "take for example synonym," in the hopes of findings phrases of a similar construction and of a similar meaning. This feels imprecise.

Though Webster's Dictionary defines a synonym as:

one of two or more words or expressions of the same language that have the same or nearly the same meaning in some or all senses

I can't help but feel as though I am not living up to my full Googling potential. Any help?

A verb phrase “[verb] up” meaning someone is easily buying whatever he sees on TV

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 02:05 AM PDT

I came across this phrase "[verb] up" twice on The Guardian Reader's comments section when readers were talking about someone tends to not raise much objection to whatever the person is told or believes whatever crap showing on TV. Readers there used the verb phrase to describe such people. I tried very hard for two days to recall what exactly the verb was but to no avail. Any idea what this verb phrase might be? Thanks.

Existential vs existing

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 08:49 AM PDT

https://wikidiff.com/existential/existent tells us the differences between existential and existing.

Could you give me situations/examples

  • where they are exchangeable,
  • where only one is suitable while the other isn't?

For example, I heard that

Bernie Sanders agrees somehow that he is viewed as an existential threat by Democratic establishment. (In contrast, Elizabeth Warren recently showed to Democratic establishment that she is a team player).

from recent interview on Bernie by The Hills in Kentucky, and immediately thought I would have used "existing threat" due to my limited vocabulary.

Thanks.

Correct word useage

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 08:54 AM PDT

English is my native tongue, yet I am often confused by word usage in the language. An example of this would be the difference between "clothing" and "clothes" used as nouns.

For example, a store that sells clothing (or clothes) can be referred to as either a "clothing store," or a "clothes store." They are interchangeable, and from sheer exposure, I perceive that neither one is preferable or more accurate, except that perhaps using the term "clothes store" might be thought of as a more casual term than "clothing store."

The thing is, if there is no difference, and I don't think there is, how did this redundancy come about and why does it persist? Seems silly and has to be confounding for anyone trying to learn English.

Then, even more confusing is the gerund, "clothing": to clothe something/someone/oneself. But, though "clothes" can also be use as a verb: "He clothes the poor," there is no such gerund as "clothesing."

Is it "room(s)" or "room/s" when referring to the possibility of more than one of something? [Parenthetical plurals]

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 04:43 AM PDT

When offering the possibility that there could be more than one of something, how should that be written? Eg. You will be responsible for the cost of your room(s). Or should it be "room/s"?

Does the term "E-post" exist (in English)? [closed]

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 04:12 AM PDT

If I'm not mistaken, the term for the place, at which we receive mails in the "physical world", is called a post (or a post-box). However, when referring to the "electronic world", I've never encountered the word e-post; thus, I'd like to ask whether it exists?

Remark: I'm asking for the generic term depicting the place, where emails are received, not for how its particular description (i.e. the email address) is called.
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