Sunday, December 5, 2021

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

I am looking for a word to describe a person or entity who is permitted by society to do bad/greedy things because they have been charitable

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 11:15 AM PST

  • I would describe this person or entity as "feeling entitled" by that doesn't exactly capture what I am trying to say.

  • For example: A person who donates a lot of money to some charity gets 'special treatment' from society (or some governing body). As a result this person is able to 'get away with' doing something bad like demolishing a nature sanctuary or treating their employees extremely poorly. Society (or some governing body) turns the other cheek and lets them do bad things just because they have been charitable.

  • I want to use it in a sentence as a statement to say something like "This person's charity does not <insert word I'm looking for here> their greed."

    • Once again "entitle" somewhat fits here but it's not exactly right because I am trying to capture the fact that they are 'getting away with something' only because they have been charitable (or even falsely charitable to be in such a position).

Looking for a word that describes a text as ‘having too much useless information’

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 10:52 AM PST

The word should be applicable to a text with too much useless information. Preferably, the term is used in everyday speech, but I wouldn't object against somewhat grandiloquent words.

Since I'm Russian, I can provide you with an example in Russian language, "watery or too much water"(direct translation from Russian, maybe it would help).

Also, looking for a colloquial word for 'write in a text too many words to pass an assignment(for instance, if you are tasked at school with writing an assignment with 600 words, but you have only 500, and you start adding useless words to hit the threshold of 600).' Direct translation from Russian is 'to pour water'.

Word or phrase for any sort of visibility-reducing weather or condition (like blizzards, sandstorms, fog, smog)

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 10:43 AM PST

I'm looking for a more general term to describe any sort of weather or weather-like condition which includes reducing visibility, specifically those which do so to what might be considered a dangerous degree (see examples at the end), but which isn't necessarily associated with a specific form of such conditions in common usage.

This word would be used for the purpose of naming a magic item in a fantasy game setting with the word or phrase referring to the conditions it causes. The effect of the item will be to create an extremely localized area (<50ft radius) of condition appropriate to the place it's used in so to reduce visibility to near zero in the area of effect. It would be determined on a case-by-case basis what the exact form of this condition would be based on the location its used.

Many words I'm finding are ones that I would ordinarily think of as subsets of fog to describe what you'd get on a cold, wet morning ("haze", "mist") in that their common usage tends to imply humidity-related conditions and so wouldn't necessarily work for something like a blizzard.

A good choice would be a word(s) that refer to weather or weather-related conditions specifically without automatically being associated to a specific form. A good secondary option would be one that implies any sort of visibility-reducing / obscuring condition, but again without implying a specific form of such. In either case, the implication should be that vision is hindered by the weather itself (or the side effects of said weather, such as reduced light levels), and not because of anything inherently magical about the weather.

Because I'm looking for this in the sense of naming an object and not to use in a particular sentence, any part of speech should work as long as it can be made to fit in a magic item name of some sort, such as Staff of {word} or {Word}ing staff. It does not have to result in an alliterative name (but bonus if it can), nor does it have to be associated to a specific form of item (ring, orb, periapt, etc. are all acceptable. I'll figure out which is appropriate later).

Examples of effects that this item might produce would include, but are not limited to:

  • sandstorms in a desert
  • blizzards on a mountain / during the winter
  • fog or monsoon in a swamp or other humid location
  • plumes of smoke near a volcano or around a smoky campfire, or smog if applied in a more modern setting
  • a whirlwind kicking up an obnoxious amount of leaves in a forest or pollen in a meadow

I've got a multiple choice question that needs to be answered please [closed]

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 09:28 AM PST

_______ advertising is so widespread in the United States, it has an enormous effect on American life.

Choices:

  • Since
  • Why
  • on account of
  • the reason

What should I use - colon, dash or comma?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 08:10 AM PST

What is the correct sentence?

For those who use this device - what is your experience?
For those who use this device: what is your experience?
For those who use this device, what is your experience?

Correct me if I am wrong, from or since [closed]

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 08:03 AM PST

From childhood ,I was never used half shirt . Is this sentence is correct ?

Tense Usage in Personal Passive Voice Construction

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 09:46 AM PST

Example Sentence:

They believed the bridge was constructed badly. ⇒ The bridge was believed to [be/have been] constructed badly.

Which should I use in this case, "to be" or "to have been"?

I found and was taught differently by different sources/teachers.

Some say that if event reported in question uses any form of the past, one should use the perfect to-infinitive, aka. the unconjugated present simple. This is a source I found which supports this rule, and my school did as well as this was a question on a test; to which the answer was "to have been"

On the other hand, some teachers taught me that if the event and the reporting happened in the same time frame or the event reported happened later than the reporting act (as this sentence clearly demonstrates since both clauses are in the same tense — the past simple), one should use the present to-infinitive, aka. the present perfect; in this case "to be". An example of this is a YouTube Video I found aimed at Russian viewers learning English.

So which is it should I use (note that I was taught differently by different teachers rather than relying solely on the Internet)? And is there a rule that I can use the next time I encounter these types of questions? I have always wondered about this but couldn't get one definitive answer. Any and all answers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance!

Make sentences about "circumstance" [closed]

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 04:54 AM PST

I made sentences to learn a vocabulary "circumstance". If there are any questions let me know and help me to make correct sentences. thanks a lot.

  1. Under no circumstances I should pass probation.

  2. I saw a suspense series that a woman died in suspicious circumstances.

  3. The company has some issues due to circumstances beyond our control.

difference between Waste Management company and Garbage Collection company [closed]

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 04:42 AM PST

In USA, when referring to companies who trash collection, any difference between "Garbage Collection" and "Waste Management"?

Poor sentence structure, why? [closed]

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 04:57 AM PST

Can someone help me with this sentence?

Accоrding to the ΔpKa-rule, the selеcted co-former satisfied the ΔpKa<0 cоndition hence a co-crystal fоrmation was expеcted.

I was told that this sentence has a poor sentence structure. Can someone correct me and make this sentence better? It is an excerpt from my scientific paper

Should I always use a comma when I include two possible answers in an already complete question?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 01:31 AM PST

Should I always use a comma when I include two possible answers in an already complete question? I've been through this stackexchange for this question, as well as top google hits. Nothing yet. Can I omit the commas in e.g.

  • What are these, verbs or nouns?

Seems like you need the comma if you're asking whether "these" are verbs or nouns, rather than asking what these verbs or nouns are. But what about

  • Who are you, Tom or Sam?

It seems fairly strange if we're asking Tom or Sam who they are. A better example

  • What are they for, class or homework?

The comma seems to work, but is it necessary?

What does "absolute merit" mean in the sentence?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 12:42 AM PST

The following part is quoted from Byways in Bookland by W. H. Davenport Adams in the 19th century, and I can't understand the "absolute merits" here in the sentence. In addition, the last sentence of this paragraph is also somewhat puzzling for me. Does the author means that the poetic talent that Hon. Hallam Tennyson had inherited is like a punishment rather than award for him? Would you please explain them for me, thank you!

The works of the present Lord Lytton and of Mr. Aubrey de Vere are too well appreciated to need much characterization. These writers would no doubt deprecate any comparison of their products with those of the first Lord Lytton and Sir Aubrey de Vere, but it is one from which, on the score of absolute merit, they would have no occasion to shrink. Mr. Oscar Wilde and Mr. Eric Mackay have written verse, no doubt, because Lady Wilde and Dr. Charles Mackay wrote verse before them ; and the Hon. Hallam Tennyson has shown, in a rhythmical version of a nursery tale, that some measure of poetic faculty has been meted out to him.

What's another word for "dreaming optimistic outcomes"?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 03:43 AM PST

I am looking for a word that means dreaming too positively. This word can be symbolized for expecting too high.

Usage: "(Present Participle of the word) from the world would result in nothing but disappointment."

"the place you grew up" or "the place you grew up in" [closed]

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 04:54 AM PST

Which sentence is correct?

What is special about the place you grew up?
What is special about the city you grew up in?

"What is special about the place you grew up?" sounds a bit ungrammatical to me, but is it how native speakers normally say?

Present perfect question and past simple question

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 09:23 AM PST

Look at these two questions:

Has your brother graduated from college?

Did your brother graduate from college?

Now, both of these questions seem fine to me, but I obviously know they are a little different. However, I can't seem to explain what the slight difference is between these grammatical sentences.

I know that when I use the present perfect, I am expecting an answer of "yes, he has" or "no he hasn't " with no specific details of exactly when in the past. But with the simple past, usually there is a specific time in the past and it conveys finality and that it is completely finished at a specific point that the speaker knows the time reference when he/she asks that question. Is there anything else I am missing?

Edit: Both are acceptable to my ear but what would people assume differently if they hear one or the other? Or is it the same?

Edit: Are both acceptable to use depending on the circumstances?

Why do we use two different verb forms for sentences like “that person is broke” versus “that person is broken”?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 10:53 AM PST

We usually use only a verb's past participle when we need to make an adjective out of it, not its past tense—but not always. Sometimes we even use both forms but assign these two different meanings!

For example, even though using broke as the past participle for the verb break is now considered obsolete, we still use that old form today for the verb's corresponding predicate adjective in sentences like

  1. Now I'm broke.

Using that obsolete form there in (1) means something quite different from what it mean here:

  1. Now I'm broken.

Since both are adjectives, why do we sometimes use an obsolete form for one sense but another form for another possible sense? Why don't we always use the same more-standard form for both senses?

This leaves break with two different inflections available for potential use as adjectives, either the past or the past participle, since historically broke once alternated with broken as that verb's past participle but no longer does so. Do other verbs ever work like break works in this respect? I'm especially looking for now-obsolete past participles still used today as adjectives that are spelled just like the verb's present or past forms instead of how its past participle is spelled in perfect constructions with have.

"Year followed year" phrase, and missing 'a' article

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 06:14 AM PST

Maybe some of you will know, why isn't there any article 'a' before the nouns 'year' in the phrase "year followed year"?

This phenomenon is also present in phrases like "year after year", "month after month", "day in, day out" etc. Thanks in advance!

Origin of "spring cleaning"

Posted: 04 Dec 2021 10:10 PM PST

Some people have traced the origin of spring cleaning to the Iranian New Year, which is on the first day of spring. However, it seems like I can find earlier origins of this. What is the true origin of the phrase "spring cleaning" and why do we use it so much (why not another season - for example, places like Scotland, Ireland, and Japan clean in winter)? Does it have something to the with human biology or is it just a word preference?

Can 2nd conditionals (unreal) have a guessing of the past situation (real)?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 08:03 AM PST

Sentences (1) and (2) have the form of 2nd conditional, which is unreal at the time of utterance (In this text, the time is past, which is natural in grammar and usage in my intuition). However, some instructors (who explain the paragraph below) say that though (1) and (2) have the same sentence structure, (2) is interpreted as the possible past (real), which means 'Picasso' could have gotten warmer ~ or not and the author still doesn't know the two possibilities. But, I don't, cannot buy that. But they insist that the interpretation is possible, depending on its context. What do you think of this?

  • (1) If creators knew when they were on their way to fashioning a masterpiece, their work would progress only forward. They would halt their idea-generation efforts as they struck gold. But in fact, they backtrack, returning to versions that they had earlier discarded as inadequate. In Beethoven's most celebrated work, the Fifth Symphony, he scrapped the conclusion of the first movement because it felt too short, only to come back to it later. Had Beethoven been able to distinguish an extraordinary from an ordinary work, he would have accepted his composition immediately as a hit. When Picasso was painting his famous Guernica in protest of fascism, he produced 79 different drawings. Many of the images in the painting were based on his early sketches, not the later variations.

  • (2) If Picasso could judge his creations as he produced them, he would get consistently "warmer" and use the later drawings. But in reality, it was just as common that he got "colder."

"For THE use in a virtual power plant" or "for use in a virtual power plant" and other "the" cases

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 04:02 AM PST

So a friend of mine just proof read my masters thesis and pointed out some errors which I think sound weird. He is probably right, but since one is in my title (*facepalm) and I need to fill in some special request to change it I wanted to double check. Is it: "Simulation of ... for THE use in a virtual power plant" or is the "the" wrongly placed there?

Also: I am using some components from an online library called "Windpowerlib". So I always referred to it as: These functions are implemented from THE windpowerlib. He told me the "the" is wrongly placed there as well.

Can someone confirm? (and maybe explain because it sounds superweird to me)

Misuse of the word "Timely"?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 02:22 AM PST

My coworkers use "timely" in a way that I am unaccustomed to and it strikes me as odd (wrong).

An example: "we need to get those reports timely".

As I've always understood it, the correct form of the sentence would be "we need to get those reports in a timely fashion". But they are essentially it as a substitute for "quickly".

Is it correct grammar to use the word as they are?

Edit

I work in the Seattle area, in tech. Tech is integrated somewhat heavily with west Asian culture (Indian, Pakistani) and therefore some the misapplication of English is adopted unconsciously by native American English speakers.

It strikes me as odd because it sounds clunky. Look at all of these applications, where it seems "good": https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/sentences-with-the-word/timely.html.

It seems to me that "Make sure the reporting is timely", or "We need that reporting in a timely fashion" is good vs "We need that reporting timely" is not good.

Is there a sentence that begins with “them”?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 10:26 AM PST

An online retail store is asking its customers to construct a sentence beginning with them in order to win a voucher. I just can't believe there's any such sentence, at least I don't know of any!

I've had enough laughs with friends coming up with Americanisms that fit, so that's not what I'm looking for.

I'm just very curious, is such a sentence grammatically possible or is this store just being mischievous?

A Comma Question - One Adjectival Followed by Another Adjectival

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 11:03 AM PST

The sentence is:

  • I'm curled up on my bed, sick with worry, because she knows the truth.

Is the comma usage correct here, or does this sentence need a comma? Thanks in advance.

Can you use a colon to introduce just a single item instead of a list?

Posted: 04 Dec 2021 10:12 PM PST

Colons are usually used to introduce a list of some kind after an independent clause; however, would it work for a single item? For example, can you write

For 3 years, I ate hamburgers: my friend's favorite food.

If you do not use a colon here, what should be used?

What is the term used for people who get drunk easily?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 10:31 AM PST

Is there another term for someone who cannot handle consuming large amounts of alcohol besides the term 'lightweight'?

Is it acceptable to start an emphatic sentence with "It is he who…"?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 09:03 AM PST

It is he who the students choose as the repersentative of their class.

Is this sentence grammatically correct? If not, why? I would like to know whether the pronoun 'he' can be used in this grammar pattern.

What is a cross signature?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 07:03 AM PST

I was told to get the cross signature done on the envelope containing my recomendation letter by the principal but I have no idea of what a cross sign is. How can it be done on the envelope?

What are alternatives to the verb “study” (in the meaning of “research”)?

Posted: 05 Dec 2021 02:56 AM PST

When writing scientific discussions (articles, book chapters, reports, ...), I frequently feel short on synonyms of the verb study, which I use extensively in sentences such as "in the next section, we study the influence of ... on ...". The alternatives I frequently use include investigate, research, look into, and shed light into (with a slightly different meaning). What I like in study and its synonyms is its rather generic meaning: it does not actually specify the type of research being done, which is desirable in some occasions.

As a consequence, I am looking for other alternatives to this verb, or constructs similar to the example quoted above ("in the next section, we study the influence of ... on ..."), to improve my writing.
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