Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange |
- Why do we have different words for countable/uncountable quantity in the decreasing direction but not the increasing direction?
- Is saying something you do not mean always irony?
- Meaning interpretation in the given context
- English,article,use of "the" [migrated]
- What is the common answer to the question: How strong are your glasses?
- "My apartment building" - does the entire building belong to the speaker or just the apartment? [migrated]
- Word to refer to two opposite words [duplicate]
- "that" after A of B structure
- Conditional if clause [migrated]
- biblio- : books :: ______ : literature [closed]
- Possessive noun [duplicate]
- Is it common in American English to use "overran" in the following context?
- misconstrue as mispresent/mislead
- "Watch" vs. "Watch as"
- Is there a difference between a roof and a ceiling when we talk about the inner surface?
- 'Oil produced' vs 'produced oil', take 2
- x-times not-comparitive adjective
- Why do conditional sentences with "would have had to" have an extra "had" in them?
- The word that meant "a small desire, less serious than a dream, goal, passion or a desire." What was it?
- Approach to vs. approach for
- Is "I was least expecting it from you" correct?
- Which is correct? 1. for nagging me to apply; or 2. for nagging me into applying
- how to write an onomatopoeia in a short story?
- English equivalent of Tamil proverb - "A tiger won't eat grass, no matter how hungry it is"
- Why is mutton used for both sheep meat and goat meat?
- What does "to have a little form" mean?
- "sample" vs "specimen" in a scientific document on condensed matter physics
- Why does "Why doesn't it work?" become "Why does it not work?"
| Posted: 08 Oct 2021 09:56 AM PDT Why do we differentiate between "fewer" for a countable quantity and "less" for an uncountable one but not between countable and uncountable quantities for "more"? Is there an archaic distinction that has fallen out of usage? Or am I simply overlooking a simple one?  |
| Is saying something you do not mean always irony? Posted: 08 Oct 2021 05:48 AM PDT The other day someone told me that it is irony every time you say something you don't really mean. At first, I thought that wasn't correct, but when I thought about it, I wasn't quite sure. Is that correct, or does the intention of the speaker have to be that the other person should interpret it as the opposite. For example, teasing your friends. It works well because your friend knows that you do not really mean it. If they thought you actually meant it, they would probably be offended. But when you are saying it, your intention is to tease your friend, not to emphasize the opposite of the literal meaning. If your friend tells a story about a TV show that he never really understood as a kid, and you say "yeah, but you've always been kind of stupid". There, you are teasing your friend. Your friend understands it is a joke because they know you and know that you do not mean it. It relies on the fact that it isn't your real opinion. Is it irony just by the fact that you do not mean it, and the other person knows you do not mean it, even if the point of the comment is to tease your friend? (Teasing is just an example. It could also be when telling a joke that everyone knows isn't 100 % true, but you are saying it to paint a funny situation.) Is it really correct to categorize those comments as irony?  |
| Meaning interpretation in the given context Posted: 08 Oct 2021 05:07 AM PDT Let us say there is a statement which says that a person joins a party two days earlier than me. In these type of cases I have too much confusion about when the person will join. Is the difference in days between the two persons equal to 1 or is it 2? A similar variation to the statement is there are two boxes above a blue box. Then is that particular box third or second from the blue box?  |
| English,article,use of "the" [migrated] Posted: 08 Oct 2021 04:34 AM PDT Why first "A" is used in sentence "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."isn't a superfluous ?forgive me.I am a novice.  |
| What is the common answer to the question: How strong are your glasses? Posted: 08 Oct 2021 08:58 AM PDT I am from Mainland China and I find that the way we describe the eye prescription is totally different from English. If someone asks me "What's your eyesight?" or "How strong are your glasses?" I don't know how to answer it. I googled the answer and find that I may answer like "I'm nearsighted with -3.0 diopters in my left eye." But diopter seems be a big word, I can't even find it in longman https://www.ldoceonline.com/spellcheck/english/?q=diopter . So I am wondering do people really use it ? I also see the answer like I am 20/100 vision. After google that meaning I have a rough idea what that means. But still it seems too complicated to me. Do people really use that ? The comment from @FumbleFingers made me realize I need to explain why I had such question in the first place. Because more that 90% of China's youth suffer from near-sightedness, check here and here, it has become a common question to ask others. BTW, in China it is really simple. The biggest E on the top is 0.1 (the old system) or 4.0(the new system). It means the worst. The bottom line is 2.0 or 5.3, the best.
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| Posted: 08 Oct 2021 01:39 AM PDT If one were to say "I entered my apartment building", does that mean that:
I'm assuming that it's mostly always used to mean the former. However, is there a way to properly distinguish between the two in American English? For example, is using the below two phrases more accurate & idiomatic?:
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| Word to refer to two opposite words [duplicate] Posted: 08 Oct 2021 06:20 AM PDT Given two words like "reward" and "punishment", which are opposite in meaning in that one is positive and the other is negative, what would you call a word that encompasses both of these words? Depending on your behavior, you will be (single word for rewarded or punished) appropriately. So for this question, I'm actually looking for two words:
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| Posted: 07 Oct 2021 10:54 PM PDT Which of the following is correct? I came across this sentence when reading the NY Mag; the writer produced sentence A. A: It's also a real biological feature, a specialized bundle of cells that regulates our cyclical processes. B: It's also a real biological feature, a specialized bundle of cells that regulate our cyclical processes. I guess the question boils down to what noun "that" refers to. When I was looking through a grammar book yesterday, the author specifically mentions that relative pronouns like that and which refer to the first noun/pronoun before, which should be "cells" instead of "bundle", making B correct  |
| Conditional if clause [migrated] Posted: 07 Oct 2021 08:47 PM PDT Can we use the first conditional to show general truth? e.g : If you don't put some cherries on your cake, it will look pale and dull. Is the word WILL here acceptable?  |
| biblio- : books :: ______ : literature [closed] Posted: 07 Oct 2021 08:25 PM PDT What prefix would indicate that something is literary or related to literature? After scouring M-W and various Google searches but "biblio-" is the closest I've come, but I'm not looking to invoke a connection to books; I want the reader to think of literature in whatever form.  |
| Posted: 07 Oct 2021 08:19 PM PDT Can someone enlighten me on the usage of possessive nouns? I know that we could only put apostrophe s behind living things. For example: My son's friend. But we can't write "the table's legs". It has to be "the legs of the table. How about names of flowers? I googled and saw many put "flower names" and I am curious to know whether this is right.  |
| Is it common in American English to use "overran" in the following context? Posted: 07 Oct 2021 09:30 PM PDT I'm late for the party, and when I turn up after half an hour my friend says, "Where have you been?" Now, can I reply, "I overran my class by half an hour"? I'm not sure if it is common in American English. Actually, according to some dictionaries, the verb "overrun" is usually used in British English:
Does it mean that in my context "overrun" is not that much common in American English? If so, are there any alternatives?  |
| misconstrue as mispresent/mislead Posted: 07 Oct 2021 07:36 PM PDT Can misconstrue be used to mean misrepresent/mislead? Looking at the definition https://www.thefreedictionary.com/misconstrue it only offers the side of the observer, ie as something being misinterpreted, but can it also be used to mean something more akin to mislead? for example: "The author intentionally misconstrued the events to make it seem like the socialists were to blame" I think I have seen it used like this but cannot find it documented after a quick search.  |
| Posted: 08 Oct 2021 05:40 AM PDT
What's the exact difference, in terms of the information/scene conveyed? He was watching the runners in both cases. Do they have different connotations? Or is it simply a matter of stylistic choice? Is one more preferred than the other in certain contexts?  |
| Is there a difference between a roof and a ceiling when we talk about the inner surface? Posted: 08 Oct 2021 01:15 AM PDT It seems that we use the words "ceiling" and "roof" for an upper surface of a building. However, we say "a roof" when we look from the outside, and "a ceiling" if we look from the inside. However, H. G. Wells uses the word "roof" to describe the room's interior:
Lexico does give sub-definition of "a roof" as an inner surface:
But what is the reason to call an inner surface a roof? What is the difference in this case between the words "ceiling" and "roof"? Maybe this applies to rooms where a ceiling is also a roof, such as a room in a single-floor building or a cave? Can H. G. Wells, calling the hall's ceiling a roof, mean that there are no more floors above the hall? Or maybe he calls the hall's ceiling a roof because the ceiling is very large and high? Maybe a large size and height are also the reason for calling a cave's ceiling a roof?  |
| 'Oil produced' vs 'produced oil', take 2 Posted: 07 Oct 2021 09:06 PM PDT Recently a question was asked here on EL&U:
Our mods saw it fit to move it to ELL, which I think is a shame. I think it is a very good question for EL&U, because it raises two issues. First issue: indeed, why is the postpositive form preferred here? It is not the case that produced oil would be unidiomatic. After all, the following appears in the OED as a sample sentence for the adjective produced:
Furthermore, we have the following attested examples: the amount of produced oil that was received by that battery during the month (source) Acceptability of the attributive form notwithstanding, the postpositive form is clearly more common (or at least it has been, historically), as the google NGram makes clear:
We get similar NGrams for other constructions, such as the oil produced was vs the produced oil was; of oil produced is vs. of produced oil is; and of oil produced was vs. of produced oil was. The idea is to ensure that we are comparing the phrase produced oil to oil produced, but not to e.g. oil produced by… So, why is the postpositive form preferred (or at least it has been, until very recently)? The only thing I can think of is that produced is relatively 'heavy', and the heavier the construction, the more likely it is to be postposed. But that of course doesn't explain why, then, even 'heavier' adjectives like beautiful aren't postposed. Could it be the homophony with the past participle? (Indeed, one answerer's preferred analysis is that produced is a reduced relative clause, an ellipsis of which had been produced. More on that later.) Well, such a homophony doesn't always result in a clear preference for the postpositive function:
Second issue: what is the most likely syntactical analysis of oil produced? In addition to the question of what makes the postpositive form more likely than the attributive form, there is also the question of how to analyze the construction. Is produced in oil produced best analyzed as a reduced relative clause, or as a postposed adjective? It is certainly possible for it to be a postposed adjective. First of all, it can be an adjective. This is clear because it can function as a predicative complement (PC), which, in turn, is clear because of the acceptability of sentences like Its products, from gear oil to gasoline, became produced in tens of thousands of refineries. (source) (See CGEL, p. 530.) And certainly some single adjectives can appear in both attributive and postpositive functions: happy people and someone happy. True, single postpositive adjectives modifying a noun (as opposed to modifying compound determinatives like something, anyone, nobody, etc.) are rare. But they are not nonexistent: the only day suitable, years past, proof positive, matters financial, all things Irish (This discussion is taken from CGEL, pp. 445 and 538.) On the other hand, it is also possible that produced is an ellipted relative clause. ComGEL, for example, says this (p. 420):
However, I think that explanation involving ellipsis should be the last resort, otherwise one could postulate them without end. Summary Why is the postpositive form oil produced more frequent than the attributive form produced oil? How should oil produced be syntactically analyzed?  |
| x-times not-comparitive adjective Posted: 08 Oct 2021 12:07 AM PDT Can anyone confidently assert that "x-times" can be used preceding an adjective that is not comparative? It's role would be simple emphasis, like "very." Here are thought up examples. I cannot find any satisfying real-life usage.
Thanks!  |
| Why do conditional sentences with "would have had to" have an extra "had" in them? Posted: 08 Oct 2021 10:06 AM PDT Well, I was reading about Type Three conditionals. In the main clause we use if + past perfect (had), then in the second clause we use either the "perfect conditional" or the "perfect continuous conditional".
Why then do some sentences use would have had in the main clause?
Could you please clear up the difference between would have and would have had? Can the second sentence be written without had in its main clause?  |
| Posted: 08 Oct 2021 08:55 AM PDT I distinctly remember the word having the connotations of a weak desire, a very passing dream, momentary wish or a capricious desire. I can also recall that it had 2 or 3 syllables. It probably ended with the character "E." Example sentences: 1) Throughout the day I have many Xs, but none of them come to fruition. 2) A goal is serious thing, it keeps you on track. An X is just something I would like to accomplish but it is not important enough to justify my efforts. 3) If only more people paid due attention to Xs, they would see the light of the day. But alas, they dismiss it casually.  |
| Posted: 07 Oct 2021 10:26 PM PDT I saw the answered questions which could make mine a duplicate (for instance "Approach to" or "approach for", but I did not find an answer. Using approach as a noun, is there a difference, however slight, between the meaning of these two sentences?
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| Is "I was least expecting it from you" correct? Posted: 07 Oct 2021 11:00 PM PDT I'm about to write a tongue-lash for someone who let me down quite badly and I want to be grammatically correct. So, how should I say this: "I was least expecting this kind of cynical criticism from you..." or "I least expected this kind of cynical criticism from you..." Other suggestions are also welcome. Thank you for your help in advance!  |
| Which is correct? 1. for nagging me to apply; or 2. for nagging me into applying Posted: 08 Oct 2021 09:01 AM PDT Which is correct in the context of "special thanks to him": 1. for nagging me to apply; or 2. for nagging me into applying. If neither, let me know as other options also come to mind. I recently posted a lovely photo from my citizenship ceremony, so this phrase was in reference to my brother as "also special thanks to my brother for successfully nagging me to apply"  |
| how to write an onomatopoeia in a short story? Posted: 08 Oct 2021 08:06 AM PDT I'm writing a short story and I would like to know how to add an onomatopoeia in a sentence. Do I have to underline it? Can an onomatopoeia be a sentence on its own? Thank you for answering.  |
| English equivalent of Tamil proverb - "A tiger won't eat grass, no matter how hungry it is" Posted: 08 Oct 2021 04:09 AM PDT In Tamil, there is a proverb that translates to something like this:
It essentially is used to describe a situation in which no matter how dire of a situation you're in, you will not use your last resort. In this case, it's used to describe that even if a tiger is starving to death, it won't eat grass (because it's a carnivore). I really couldn't find any sort of English idiom that can accurately describe this Tamil proverb. Please post all related English idioms as answers, even if they are only partially accurate. A possible situation I might use this in: Alice was a hardworking student who believed that she could receive an A in her class without using extra credit. I might use the idiom to describe Alice in this situation, as she refuses to use her last resort (extra credit), no matter desperate she is (because she believes she can earn an A without extra credit.)  |
| Why is mutton used for both sheep meat and goat meat? Posted: 08 Oct 2021 12:23 AM PDT The meat of an adult sheep is called mutton. The meat of an adult goat is called chevon or mutton.
Questions:
(Though, goat meat itself is not that common in North America comparing to other parts of the world)  |
| What does "to have a little form" mean? Posted: 07 Oct 2021 10:27 PM PDT In the article, "Not nein...but TEN reasons why we should love Germany", the following phrase is being used:
Obviously being some kind of typical British humour (I suppose), what does "to have a little form" mean exactly, where does it come from and is it also used in the US?  |
| "sample" vs "specimen" in a scientific document on condensed matter physics Posted: 08 Oct 2021 08:11 AM PDT I am searching for an appropriate headline in scientific document. The chapter is named "Investigated Specimen" at the moment. In the chapter I describe crystals that I have investigated. I feel that "Investigated Specimen" is not clear or appropriately descriptive. Would "Samples Used in the Experiments" be a common title or is there perhaps a better variant that is used in scientific papers?  |
| Why does "Why doesn't it work?" become "Why does it not work?" Posted: 08 Oct 2021 04:21 AM PDT When you uncontract doesn't in "Why doesn't it work?" the not moves to "Why does it not work?" This confuses me even more when I use a longer phrase instead of the pronoun it like below:
Why does the word order change when we use a contraction?  |
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