Friday, December 24, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

simple past or present perfect issue

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 11:51 PM PST

I would like to ask the reason of using present perfect tense instead of past tense in the italic words in the sentence below:

She has gotten older since we last met her. She also seems to have become funnier.

Is it because the meaning would contain the message that "she had become funnier for a while after we last met her. But she is not funnier than before anymore." if we use a past tense here?

Thank you.

What is the origin of the idiom "Put on a clinic"?

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 12:13 AM PST

I was rather fascinated by the idiom put on a clinic (meaning to perform exceptionally well) when I heard it used today for what I'm sure was the first time, because it sounded so cool. More than that, I was intrigued by its origin, and it's certainly not too easy to trace its roots without laboring a bit. Which I did: consulted a handful of online dictionaries. Sadly, to no avail. I'm afraid (and a bit chagrined to say) that I've virtually exhausted my resources. I do possess offline dictionaries and a title on word etymologies as well, but I know they won't be of much service in this regard.

Could anyone please shed some light on the origin of this beautiful idiom?

—Beginning Sentences with a Dash

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 09:22 PM PST

One thing that has always perplexed me while reading philosophy is the odd use of punctuation. — Namely, the use of em dashes to begin a sentence. I find this most prevalent in Hegel and Wittgenstein who both wrote in German.

From Hegel's Encyclopedia Logic:

One thus sees, for example, an electrical phenomenon, and asks for the ground of it; if we receive the answer, the electricity is the ground of this phenomenon, then this is the same content that we had immediately before us, merely translated into the form of something internal. — Furthermore, however, the ground is not merely what is simply identical with itself, but also different from itself and, for this reason, diverse grounds can be put forward for one and the same content, a diversity of grounds that proceeds according to the concept of difference, then further to opposition in the form of grounds for and against the same content. — If, for example, we consider an action, more specifically a theft, then this is a content relative to which several sides can be distinguished.

From Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations:

  1. In what sense does an order anticipate its fulfilment? — By now ordering just that which later on is carried out? — But this would surely have to run: "which later on is carried out, or again is not carried out". And that says nothing.

Any ideas why this style is favoured and if it can be considered valid use? Thanks.

What does pluralizing a verb in English mean under the hood?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 09:05 PM PST

Here we have a simple sentence:

The small child jumps.

Why is the word "jumps" "pluralized"? Is it just a quirk of English that when the subject is singular we add an "-s" to the verb? Or is there some deeper underlying meaning to the verb that I am unaware of when used in this way (similar to how -ing and -ed change the verb's meaning)?

You don't have the plural when "children" is plural:

The small children jump.

But I don't know how to search for this answer, not being an expert in English grammar.

I am asking because I am working on a conlang (fantasy language) and am not sure what the exact hidden meaning is of pluralized verbs in English. Should it be translated differently than "singular" verbs?

What do you call the construction noun + "-ed" which, like an adjective, can modify another noun? [closed]

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 07:51 PM PST

There are some words that appear to be adjectives formed from nouns inflected with something that looks like the past participle ending "-ed". Some of these are preceded (hyphenated in my usage) with a color or number. Some examples, with head nouns that they can modify, are: two-headed snake, red-haired woman, three-masted schooner, dimpled cheek, pimpled face, frilled shirt and porticoed entrance. What is the name for this noun-plus-past-participle-ending construction, if it has a name?

Word for time that performers must arrive for a show or event

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 09:09 PM PST

What is the term for the time that performers must arrive for a show?

For example, "Show starts at 8, [WORD] for cast and crew is 7pm not a millisecond later!"

Similarly, a "curtain call" is at the end of a show, when performers step out from behind the curtain, and take a bow.

What is the term on Broadway for the time that performers are required to arrive? Ty.

How to describe person

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 09:17 PM PST

A person who does things to reach success, never gives up even though there are huge difficulties. Who is smart, enterprising, curious, self-regulated and persistent, take care of others.

Usage of doesn't in future tense

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 04:16 PM PST

Is the following sentence grammatically correct and why?

(a) "I reckon she doesn't come in on Thursday hearing that"

I was told that since the sentence is in future tense and I am expecting that something won't happen in the future then the sentence should stay in the future tense so I should have said either of the following instead:

(b) "I reckon she won't be coming in on Thursday hearing that"

(c) "I reckon she will not be coming in on Thursday hearing that"

Whilst I agree (b) and (c) are both correct, (a) sounds completely natural in my head and fine to me so I'm not sure what the issue with (a) if there is one.

Thanks in advance.

How to avoid the repetition of a noun in a comparison

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 04:10 PM PST

Now I have a sentence:

The magnetic field at this stage is parallel to the magnetic field at the first stage, but the intensity of the magnetic field at this stage can be lower than the intensity of the magnetic field at the first stage.

This sentence is wordy due to a lot of noun repetition. Can I simply this reword sentence into

The magnetic field at this stage is parallel to that at the first stage, but the intensity of the magnetic field at this stage can be lower than that at the first stage.

I know that in some comparisons we can use "that" to avoid noun repetition, like "The mass of the earth is much larger than that of the moon". But I am not sure whether this technique can be applied to other circumstances like the example here.

Meaning of 'from' in context [closed]

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 02:51 PM PST

What is the meaning of the preposition 'from' in the below sentence?

We were attacked from both sides of the river.

The use of 'from' here seems idiomatic: none of the dictionary definitions seem correct in this particular instance.

Word for: sideways descent down a steep slope?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 03:55 PM PST

When descending a steep slope composed of dirt, gravel or slippery stone, one may at some point transition from a forward walk to a slower, more careful sideways one, using (say) the outside edge of the left foot and and inside edge of the right foot to dig into the ground and provide better purchase while descending.

Is there a word for this mode of locomotion, or one which could be considered to best describe it?

Usage ex: "He _____ down the slope, picking his way around crags and boulders."

What is the origin of "huge"?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 07:07 PM PST

What is the origin of the word huge (adj. and adv.) meaning "very great, large, or big; immense, enormous, vast"?

Both OED and Etymonline say that it might be from an Old French word which has an unknown origin.

Etymonline:

mid-12c., apparently a shortening of Old French ahuge, ahoge "extremely large, enormous; mighty, powerful," itself of uncertain origin.

OED:

Middle English huge, hoge, apparently aphetic < Old French ahuge, ahoge, ahoege, in same sense, of unknown origin. It is, however, noteworthy that no connecting link in the form of huge in Old French, or ahuge in early Middle English, has as yet been found.

Would it be possible to find further details?

Additionally, OED mentions "aphetic" in the etymology of the word. In phonetics and phonology, apheresis (or aphesis) is defined as the loss of a word-initial vowel producing a new form called aphetism. Was this historical sound change common when borrowing words from Old French? This might help to find an answer to the origin of the word.

Using "a lot" or "very much" to answer "how popular is something?" [closed]

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 05:52 PM PST

Can I use "A lot" or "Very much" to answer "How popular is somebody/something?"?

A full answer would be "It is very popular", but can I simply replace the answer with "A lot" or "Very much"?

In what contexts can I use the terms "year-on-year"/"year-over-year"?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 02:58 PM PST

Specifically, can I use "year-on-year" or "year-over-year" to describe a change in periods shorter than a year across different years (such differences in the year to date).

If, for example, I had 100,000 in revenue from January to September 2020, and I had 150,000 in revenue from January to September 2021, could I say:

"After the third quarter, revenue for the year to date grew 50% year-over-year."

Is comma needed if we use "although" in the middle of a sentence?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 01:49 PM PST

When we teach students the conjunctions like before, after, or although, we teach them that these conjunctions can be put at the beginning of a sentence or in the middle of a sentence. The question is: if we put these conjunctions in the middle of a sentence, is a comma necessary? Michael Swan said in Practical English Usage, under "Punctuation", that if we put the conjunctions at the beginning, a comma is needed. However, he didn't state clearly whether it is necessary if the conjunction is put in the middle. For example, in:

She walked home by herself, although she knew that it was dangerous.

I think the comma is not necessary, but my colleague said she found the example from Cambridge Online Dictionary.

Word for anger out of concern [for another]?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 11:27 AM PST

Fearful anger is the closest I've found—compound words/phrases are acceptable, but I'm really looking for a single word.

A context example: if a friend or loved one does something reckless and/or dangerous, and you scold them after. You're angry with them, but the anger is out of concern for their well-being.

Alarm: covers the anxiety, but I'm not sure if it encapsulates the 'anger' right.

Ideas?

What does the grapheme 'm̃' (m with a diacritical tilde) mean in English? Was it in use?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 07:49 PM PST

In a historical English book published in 1875, the grapheme 'm̃' (m with a diacritical tilde) is used in the title.

Ye parish of Cam̃erwell : a brief account of the parish of Camberwell : its history and antiquities / by William Harnett Blanch.
Language(s): English
Published: London : E.W. Allan, 1875.

Cover of the book:
enter image description here

Sources:
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100327885
Google Books

Cam̃erwell appears to be same as Camberwell in the book. Did the grapheme m̃ replace the consonant digraph mb here? Was this grapheme/character used in English? (Early Modern English or even before?)

What word describes someone I know exists but have never met?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 11:59 PM PST

Strange Acquaintances

Goal

I am looking for a word to describe someone I know exists but that I have not yet met in person or virtually.

Example

I have an acquaintance named Bob whose mother is named Mary. I know Mary exists but we have not yet had any interaction and Bob has not mentioned me to her, so Mary knows nothing of me or at best the same, that my name is Jeff and I am Bob's acquaintance. We are strangers to each other but I know something of her that, in my mind at least, removes her from the 'stranger' category, namely, that her name is Mary and she is Bob's mother. People I know of from media would fall into this category for me, e.g., Kevin Bacon, Abraham Lincoln, and Lorena Bobbitt.

Baseline

I tend to think of strangers as people I do not know and do not intend to know but whom I have been made aware of by circumstance. To me, strangers remain strangers unless we learn each other's names, run into each other again, or have spent enough time together that I should know their name but for some reason I did not learn or remember it - at which point we become acquaintances; an acquaintance being someone I have met physically or virtually whom I would be expected to remember and who would be expected to remember me.

Intended Usage

I am writing a little address book app and would like to classify people I have been made aware of, like Bob's mom, Mary, so that I can exclude them from things like reminders to get their phone number or email address. I want to remember that Bob's mom's name is Mary so I can remember to ask him about her next time we meet. I have no intention of contacting Mary but would like to store her in my app as I do Bob and everyone else so I can capture her phone number, etc., should that ever become a necessity or convenience.

Sample Sentence

"Mary is a(n) <insert word here> since her son, Bob, is an acquaintance of mine and I merely know of her, having been told of her by Bob five minutes ago."

Dictionary & Thesaurus Searches

  • Stranger (Most likely candidate)
  • Acquaintance

Notes

  • Bob and Mary are fictitious people concocted in service of this question.
  • I do not foresee a need to store Kevin Bacon, Abraham Lincoln, or Lorena Bobbitt in my app.

Most states have two large universities: "Whatever State" and "The University of Whatever." Is there a semantic reason for this?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 07:34 PM PST

I live in South Dakota. We have both The University of South Dakota, and South Dakota State University. They are both large public institutions. Each is known for a specialty (USD is business, law, and medicine; SDSU is agriculture, science, and engineering), and one (SDSU) is a fair bit larger than the other. However, they're more or less the same.

Why the different naming, and does the name format carry any meaning?

My immediate impression is that we had two different institutions, and they simply needed different names. But is there some larger, systemic reason for the different in naming? Does the format of the name imply anything, in general?

(Note: I'm using South Dakota as an example here. The same naming convention is true of most every state in the US.)

Perforability - a correct term similar to Russian "перфорированность", meaning "relative area of a surface occupied by pores"

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 02:25 PM PST

I'm looking for the correct translation of the Russian term "перфорированность" and find the "perforability" but don't know, is it correct?

From the physical point of view "perforability" means the relative area of a surface occupied by pores.

This term can be used in (scientific) papers.

For example, the sentense

To calculate the relative area of perforations (pores) on the surface of crystal slices, we use the following method ...

can be changed to a new one

To calculate the perforability of crystal slices, we use the following method ...

There is a close term "porosity" that means the relative volume of a solid occupied by pores. But I need a term for the surface area.

Can perforability be used for this?

Word usage: "either" or "both"?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 02:48 PM PST

Consider the following usages:

  1. Either the book and the pen are neither in the pocket nor in the backpack of either Sally or Peter.

  2. Both the book and the pen are neither in the pocket nor in the backpack of either Sally or Peter.

  3. Both the book and the pen are not in the pocket or the backpack of Sally and Peter.

Which of the three sentences is correct?

What I am trying to mean is that "the book is not in the pocket of Sally; the book is not in the backpack of Sally; the book is not in the pocket of Peter; the book is not in the backpack of peter". And same thing for the pen.

Can they be improved?

The question focuses on the word usage and English grammar of "either", "neither", and "both". This is strictly not a logic puzzle because meaning is very clear: nothing is the pocket of anyone.

What is the difference between "The army didn't have any" and "didn't have no" in "It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier"?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 11:53 AM PST

In his intro to the song "It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier," Tom Lehrer says:

The army didn't have any, excuse me, didn't have no official song.

And after that the audience laughs. Why is it funny?

Does the first statement neutrally states that there is "not any official song" and second moderately implies that "there are many songs about army, but all of them are inappropriate"? Or because he corrects grammatically correct statement with double negative? Or something else?

What is the subtle difference in meaning that eludes me?

Capitalisation for emphasis?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 12:03 PM PST

Let's say we have a time card software system. In the help FAQ, is the second version grammatically correct, or preferable?

How can we locate time cards that had errors?

How can we locate Time Cards that had errors?

Our younger (early twenties) UX guy delivered us FAQ mock-ups with quite a lot of non-standard capitalisation and we are trying to figure out if we need to de-capitalize some words.

For example, the last FAQ says:

What if I still have a Question?

Can I say "hit the bushes" to mean escape?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 04:04 PM PST

Can I say "hit the bushes" to mean escape?

I simply want to verify if this expression exists. I know "beat the bushes" to describe a thorough search.

What is the meaning of “screen” in this context?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 02:06 PM PST

What is the meaning of "screen" in this contexts? And what is for an screen to be elementary? Screen has two main meanings: monitor and partition. None of them seems to fit in this context.

As weather reveals one of the most open, unpredictable, and uncontrollable dimensions of life, its uncertainty has been interpreted in the Jewish-Christian tradition as an elementary screen for interaction between creation and the Creator. As such, weather, although it certainly does not do anything other than weathering, has also served as a screen for the projection of God's presence and moral relation to his/ her created beings.

The continuative and non-continuative readings of the perfect form (have + past participle)

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 05:06 PM PST

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Page 141) has this section: enter image description here

Here, Tr is the time referred to (by the verb or verb group, e.g., have told, have been, told, was), and To is the time of orientation, which equates to the time of utterance in this question.

Now, my question is about the distinction made in the quoted portion of CGEL between the continuative and non-continuative readings of the perfect. If I understand it correctly, CGEL is making the distiction that the perfect locates Tr "before and up to To" and "wholly before To" in the continuative and non-continuative reading, respectively.

The following perfect in bold I think has the continuative reading:

(1) She has been writing the book since she was in her twenties and at last it's finished.

But here, Tr, the time referred to by the verb group has been writing, doesn't seem to extend up to the time of utterance (To), because at the time of uttrance, she's not longer writing the book.

Am I misunderstanding CGEL or is CGEL's distinction between the continuative and non-continuative reading of the perfect doesn't really apply to example (1)?

EDIT

Here's some evidence supporting CGEL's claim that the continuative reading's Tr includes To:

A 2002 linguistics paper titled "Event Structure and the Perfect - Stanford University" by Paul Kiparsky (page 5) quotes another paper (Mittwoch 1988) to say this:

The universal reading requires an adverb specifying a duration (such as always, since 1960 or for two years)...

[T]he boundaries that define the duration are understood in an exclusive way in the existential reading but in an inclusive way in the universal reading (Mittwoch 1988). The sentence

[10] I have been in Hyderabad since 1977.

is false on the existential reading if I last was in Hyderabad in 1977 or if I have just landed on my first visit there; it is the intervening time that counts (exclusive boundaries). For the universal reading of [10] to be true I must have been there in 1977 and I must be there now (inclusive boundaries).

(Boldface mine.) (Here, the existential reading refers to the experiential reading, whereas the universal reading refers to the continuative reading.)

So what this paper is saying is that the continuative reading must include the boundaries that define the duration specified by an adverb (e.g., since 1977).

Since this 2002 paper by a reputable linguist quotes a 1988 paper to make this point, I highly doubt that this specific claim made by this paper is questionable. Moreover, this paper's claim is in line with CGEL' explanation that the continuative reading's Tr includes To.

Hyphens and capitalization [duplicate]

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 03:02 PM PST

I am editing a document. The writer used the hyphenated form of "Company-Wide" in the article title. Note that the writer bot only hyphenated the word; the writer also capitalized "Wide." Is this correct?

How to properly list quotes in a sentence

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 01:01 PM PST

For a marketing class, I am listing three different slogans a company has. I have rewritten this a few times and I can't seem to get it to look correct.

My question is should I make it one big quote and place semicolons/ commas in between each quote?

The sentence I have currently is:

Three slogans are: "Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together", "Connect with friends and the world around you on Facebook", and "Bringing the world closer together".

What is the origin of "daemon" with regards to computing?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 11:50 AM PST

Daemon has an interesting usage in computing. From my local dictionary:

a background process that handles requests for services such as print spooling and file transfers, and is dormant when not required

Does anyone know where this came from? I assume its relation to the word demon is notable. My dictionary also lists daemon as an archaic form of demon. Why did computing use daemon instead of demon?

Sorted vs Sorted out

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 12:18 AM PST

I'm an American and I refer to a situation which is settled as "sorted out." My English family would just say that it's "sorted". Which is the earlier expression? Did Americans add the preposition or did the English drop it?
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