Thursday, December 2, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

hyphens with numbers and counting

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 09:31 AM PST

I am trying to describe a ongoing situation that has gone over for over three months. Would it be correct to say a three-months-and-counting situation or three-months and counting situation?

Future perfect continuous tense of be verb

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 08:13 AM PST

The future perfect continuous tense of 'be' verb is a possibility?

1

I will have been being in the cinema industry for 3 months by this Christmas.

Is this type of sentence construction used in the context?

2
Future continuous tense of be verb, such as

We will have be being positive towards our attitude throughout.

Is this type of sentence used?
Why this structure is not available so often?

Is this a common pattern that we use intransitive form of verb, when the object that verb needs is on the previous sentence? [closed]

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 08:23 AM PST

For example, I made up this phrase, in the second sentence I used the intransitive meaning of the verb. Is this a common pattern?

Communities can never have their own currency. Instead, they always delegate to the government.

The actual phrase that confuses me is:

Arrow functions can never have their own this bound. Instead, they always delegate to the lexical scope.

I see in the dictionary that sentences like

A good manager knows how to delegate

That meaning of the sentence is complete without an object can use an intransitive form of the verb.

But in the two first examples, the meaning of the second sentence individually requires an object but the previous sentence fills that part. Is this a known structure of creating phrases with intransitive verbs?

Is the term “donor” appropriate to refer to a machine used for parts?

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 07:01 AM PST

For example, I am intending to purchase an iCloud locked phone to use for parts. Would calling the phone a "donor" be appropriate in such a context?

How do you rhyme Harold and Herald [closed]

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 08:48 AM PST

Reading a book recently where the main protagonist is fixated on homonyms and has rules that proper nouns are not homonyms and gives Harold and herald as an example of words that sound the same but are not homonyms. As an English speaker from the South of England this completely threw me as I just can't imagine how those two words could be pronounced the same.

Can any US English speakers enlighten me on how this can be? To me they are pronounced hah-ROlled and heh-rALd. To me they have 2 divergent vowel sounds and a different stress.

They also said that haul and hall do not sound the same which is equally baffling. Author seems to be from New York if that helps? Thanks!

PS. Book is Rain Reign by Ann M Martin if anyone is interested.

Has the word individual 'outcompeted' that of person historically?

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 08:27 AM PST

Would it be correct to say that the word individual have 'outcompeted' that of person since 17th century in everyday English, as well as in social sciences later on?

According to etymonline.com's entry on individual "Meaning "a single human being" (as opposed to a group, etc.) is from 1640s. Colloquial sense of "person" is attested from 1742. Latin individuum as a noun meant "an atom, indivisible particle," ....

As of person "c. 1200, persoun, "an individual, a human being," from Old French persone "human being, anyone, person".

If so, it would be interesting to observe how a language can change via vocabulary in parallel with a radical change experienced by a country ideologically and structurally. In this case, the change experienced by England since 17th century that has given birth to the 'modern times' with its individualism would be accountable for the change in English. Consider that originally individual indicated separateness and indivisibility which was intimately close to the era of flourishing individualism so that these properties have been projected towards a human person, and thus you get an 'individual' instead of a 'person.'

It,too, has been interesting to observe on Quorra.com that today, few anglophone people recognize the difference in the meanings of the words.

On my account, social sciences' vocabulary, too, show their sympathy for 'individual' rather than 'person.'

To avoid misinterpretation, I would add that I mean the two words as alternative words pertaining to the same object, a numerically distinct human being, which yet have different historical-and-cultural connotations one perhaps can allocate to the different kinds of society, respectively.

A term for the property of being able to be accessed by many people?

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 05:03 AM PST

How do I say that a given object has the property that it can be accessed by many people? I am trying to use that property in a sentence as follows:

Y is unreliable since it inherits the *property above* of X

My current attempt is:

Y is unreliable since it inherits the ubiquitous accessibility of X

Are there better ways to convey the idea described above?

Omitting "Which was"

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 07:18 AM PST

In the following sentence, I am not sure whether I can omit "which was". Omitting is suggested to me by a famous grammar software. Wouldn't "developed" then (after omitting) refer to environment? I want develop to refer to "principle". Or is it possible? Which rules apply?

This paper presents a principle for such environments, which was developed during and evaluated through a study conducted somewhere, where they build large stuff

Gauss vs Gauss' vs Gauss's? [duplicate]

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 03:46 AM PST

Which of the three should be used? Gauss law vs Gauss' law vs Gauss's law? The middle one seems most correct but does that make the others incorrect? Or is it a matter of preference. Also, how do the three differ in pronounciation?

"Choose burger" or "Choose the burger" or "Choose a burger". Picking the right article [closed]

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 03:47 AM PST

Which one is correct? Specifically, the context is a restaurant menu with multiple choices available when the main item/dish is picked. Should articles be used generally when listing choices?

'A pair of shoes is/are odd.' Is there a name for this double meaning regarding singularity/plurality?

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 08:19 AM PST

If I say :

I have a pair of shoes that is odd,

the meaning would be that there was something odd about the pair. Perhaps the shoes are bright green with pink spots.

But if I say :

I have a pair of shoes that are odd,

the meaning would be that these are odd shoes and are not a pair at all.

Just saying :

I have an odd pair of shoes ,

is ambiguous.

I need the one of the first two statements to be clear as to the meaning.

Is there a name for this division of meaning by choosing singular and plural ?

Are there any other examples of this peculiarity in the English language ?

In the first statement, the concept seems to me to associate 'pair' with 'is', but in the second the concept of association is between 'shoes' and 'are'.

Is there a word like 'mischievousness' that doesn't imply childishness? [closed]

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 02:09 AM PST

I want to describe an adult person who goes against what they're told, but mischievousness implies that the subject is a child. I came up with 'contrarian' but it didn't quite suit what I was looking for. Any ideas? Thanks.

Ladies’ Captain or Ladies Captain? [closed]

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 03:40 AM PST

I write a newsletter for our Golf Club. Should I sign it off as Sue. Ladies' Captain. Or Sue. Ladies Captain. ??

"Transgress the literary/genre fiction divide"

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 12:48 AM PST

"The novel transgresses the literary/genre fiction divide."

Is it proper to say that something transgresses a divide? Is a binary also transgressed? and can we use use the slash punctuation for the binary opposites as in here?

What is an idiom for making a situation worse in your efforts to make a different one better?

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 09:20 AM PST

Maybe it doesn't exist, but I feel like there's an idiom for a situation where, in an effort to solve one issue, you exacerbate or create a second related issue, probably directly.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire doesn't really work because that idiom refers from going from bad to worse, and it wasn't necessarily your fault; I need this to be explicitly that fault of the person performing the action.

Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face also doesn't work since it's not about making something better that inadvertently creates something worse, it's about making something worse out of spite, even knowing it will hurt you in some way.

Edit: backfired/more hindrance than help isn't connotatively what I'm looking for exactly (though it might be as close as I get). The implication in the former is that the action you took had the opposite effect as intended, whereas for my needs the action has to succeed in its original intent, but create problems elsewhere. The latter doesn't seem to match the needed connotation either because it carries an implication that the problem being "solved" is the most important thing but I need the whole situation (problem solved and problem created) to be treated under the same idiom with equal weight. Something along the lines of backfire, but without the implication listed above.

Thanks for the suggestions!

"In this regard" vs "in regards to this"

Posted: 01 Dec 2021 07:32 PM PST

I am not a native English speaker but have had English as the medium of instruction throughout my education. While writing an email application, I wrote this line as a concluding statement.

"Let me know if there are any opportunities in this regard".

However, I am now confused as to whether I should have written

"Let me know if there are any opportunities in regards to this."

What is the correct way of expressing this sentiment, and if both are grammatically correct, which one is preferred in a formal context like an email?

How would you diagram "He delights in his toys"

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 05:36 AM PST

Settling a friendly argument: The sentence "He delights in his toys" seems to me to diagram with "in his toys" as an adverbial from the verb "delights". How would you diagram this and why?

What can I call 2nd and 3rd place finishes in a competition?

Posted: 01 Dec 2021 06:47 PM PST

There are many awards I received from the sport I did. I thought to compress everything and write as 'Inter university and All island winner' but I have placed only 2nd and 3rd places. What is the best way to correct this?

How could I compare two figures in English [closed]

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 12:50 AM PST

Say there's a leading board for revenues.

  • Company A: $10m
  • Company B: $5m
  • Company C: $2m

I want to emphasize that the "top" is twice as high as the "second":

The revenue for company A is twice as high as that for the second place.

Is this sentence correct? If not, what would be a natural way to say it?

What is the noun of "to credit something to somebody"?

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 09:01 AM PST

I'm working with digital securities. You can think about company shares. If an investor buys those shares, it is a process with several steps. At the end, the issuer gives the shares to the investor:

The issuer credits the shares to the investor.

What is that process as a noun? Is that "a credit"? A "creditation"? Something else?

Suitable substitute for "edge" in business terminology

Posted: 01 Dec 2021 08:05 PM PST

I am doing a translation on global integration among entrepreneurs. There is one sentence that makes me very confused is "talk about the outside of the topic before going straight to the main idea". I don't know what word to use to describe that "outside" exactly, it's like on the edge, not off-topic nor going too deep into the main idea. What word should I use?

What's a word for someone who switches off when things don't go their way?

Posted: 01 Dec 2021 06:39 PM PST

I have a colleague who has very strong opinions on how something should be done. When it's decided by the group to do it another way, the colleague 'switches off' from the meeting and broods on the fact that we're not doing it 'the right way' (their way) and will often refer back to that fact whenever it's brought up in later meetings.

What's a single word to describe this that will inform them without being too negative?

parallelism in a sentence

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 01:05 AM PST

A public authority was looking to improve productivity, transparency of information and better manage public funds

What would be the correct way to write the above statement?

A public authority was looking to improve productivity, offer more transparency in information and better manage public funds?

'Are you sure you want to delete selected items OR the selected items?'?

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 12:13 AM PST

"Are you sure you want to delete selected items?" or "Are you sure you want to delete the selected items?" Which one is correct?

Maybe it's better to say " delete these items" and to avoid this issue?

What are the differences between "what is with", "what is up with" and "what is wrong with"?

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 04:03 AM PST

I am watching the drama called Friends at the moment and many times actors used to say one of them. I think it seems like that those expressions are little bit similar to each other.

Please, tell me how those expressions are different.

Thank you in advance.

What exactly falls under the label of "complement"?

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 09:23 AM PST

There seems to be a lot of contradicting beliefs out there regarding complements and what they cover -- or maybe I am just confusing myself. However, I cannot seem to find an answer that I understand.

Here are some of the things I have heard: "Relative clauses cannot be complements..." "Complementizers are just a special type of conjunction..." "Complements are noun clauses..."

There is a lot more, but I do not think its necessary to list them all. Basically, I am just wondering if someone can give me a good, solid definition for "complement" and "complementizer." And, can relative pronouns (simple and fused/nominal) be considered complement? What about relative adverbs?

Meaning of the phrase "in country"

Posted: 01 Dec 2021 09:36 PM PST

I was listening to a dialogue/interview on the radio about a researcher in Africa, and she used an expression similar to:

I have been in country for around three months now, and in that time...

It sounded like a deliberate expression, not that she missed or omitted the word "the" before "country".

Of course, there is an obvious face-value meaning, such as "staying in the country", but it also seems to carry some other kind of connotation I can't express.

Am I over-analyzing this, or is there a meaning/connotation beyond the obvious?

"In the hope of" vs. "with the hope of"

Posted: 02 Dec 2021 06:34 AM PST

While solving a question I encountered a situation when there was a subtle difference between the two:

After meeting together near Mediolanurn in 313, Roman Emperors Constantine Augustus and Licinius Augustus issued The Edict of Milan in the hope of/with the hope of ending years of internal religious strife and the persecution of minorities.

I think with sounds more appropriate. But I am not sure about the usage of in.

Could anyone explain the correct usage in this sentence? Also give some instances where we can use the latter one.

When is the present perfect tense used instead of the past tense?

Posted: 01 Dec 2021 08:21 PM PST

When is the present perfect tense used instead of the past tense?

I know that the present perfect tense is used when some adverbs (e.g., never, ever) are present in the sentence; the same is true for sentences like the following one.

When you returned, I have been at home since 3:00 PM.

In which other cases should I use the present perfect? Do the following sentences require it?

I have walked downtown everyday for a year.

I have been at home since 3:00 PM.
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