Saturday, January 15, 2022

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

How many types of starting sentences are there?

Posted: 15 Jan 2022 04:30 AM PST

___ about payments and account balances should be directed to our billing department.

(A.): to inquire (B.): inquired (C.): inquires (D.): inquire

in the test, said was the right answer is (C.): inquires. I've taught how to start -- like in this case, must be To + V.inf.

thank you in advance.

Replacement for "sorry" when expressing condolences

Posted: 15 Jan 2022 04:19 AM PST

When expressing condolences, I often hear phrases like "I am sorry to hear about your mother". This always struck me as strange, since 'sorry' is most commonly used to apologise after doing something wrong.

Is there a different word to replace sorry in such a sentence? Or would the only alternative be to completely restructure the sentence?

How to use this verb? [closed]

Posted: 15 Jan 2022 03:49 AM PST

I've been confused for a long time about how to use (verb+s) e.g. S + svcks can I use it like S + v.to be + svck. to give you an explanation that it wasn't as expected. and I've never seen natives use it.

thank you in advance :)

What do these phrases mean? [closed]

Posted: 15 Jan 2022 02:50 AM PST

Can anyone tell me what these phrases mean?

  1. Face the music
  2. Butter somebody up
  3. Go bananas
  4. Break a leg
  5. Pull somebody's leg

What is meant by ‘whole tracts’ in this context?

Posted: 15 Jan 2022 12:14 AM PST

What is meant by 'whole tracts' in this passage. I know that 'tract' means 'area', 'portion', etc. and of course I know what 'whole' means, but I don't understand the meaning of them in the context. It was said before that the Earth is largely affected by humans, yet here in this sentence it says it is largely unaffected. Am I missing something here?

There have been many different conceptions of nature across the cen- turies. For some, nature is everything that is not supernatural, and in this sense humanity is generally regarded as part of nature. For others, the natural is everything that is not (or largely not) the result of human artifice or intervention, and in this sense humanity is often regarded as distinct from nature, since most people are formed by human nurturing and education. The parenthetic 'or largely not' is important, for the regions of Earth unaffected by humanity are diminishingly slight, and in some views nonexistent. Yet whole tracts are largely unaffected, and it is these tracts and their living inhabitants that are most often meant when people speak of 'nature'.

Is the BBC correct in referring to Canadian geese?

Posted: 15 Jan 2022 04:47 AM PST

The Canada goose is a migratory species which lives in northern parts of the northern hemisphere - including the Arctic, as well as temperate regions of North America and northern Europe. In winter we have a lot of them in the UK, which I understand migrate mostly from Greenland and Iceland. They are, I gather unlikely to have come from Canada.

"Canada goose" is the name of the species. But I've noticed a tendency on the part of the BBC to refer to "Canadian geese". Hesitating to take on the august BBC on a matter of correct terminology I believe this is quite wrong. It should be "Canada geese". Canadian goose suggests one of no particular species which has been brought here from Canada.

Am I right?

A north country question: is Varmint the root of Warm 'un?

Posted: 15 Jan 2022 03:02 AM PST

I would like to examine the proposition that the Yorkshire and north country term warm 'un may derive from the word varmint.

I was brought up in south Yorkshire and often heard children referred to as a warm 'un. The phrase usually applied to lively, mischievous or otherwise exceptionally active children who entertained or irritated adults. "Ee – ee's a warm 'un!"

Un is not difficult:

Yorkshire Express
Un – one

Warm poses more interest. In my childlike naivety I assumed it meant "A warm one", drawing some sort of parallel with a hot and active fire (of which there were many in a coalfield area).

Later I thought it to relate to the adult use of hot, referring to a sexually active and attractive person:

Cambridge
Hot:
sexually attractive, or feeling sexually excited:
She's really hot!
I'm hot for you, baby.
I've got a hot date tonight.

Being slang, there are only limited quotations available. We have:

Milly Johnson
Warm un:
Witty
bit of a slapper (female).
Elsie down the road is a warm un.

Yorkshire Post
He's a warm (rhymes with harm) un" (has a bob or two, nicely off)

BBC
Amt Tyke (a contributor to the BBC):
Anyone know this one: "tha's a warm un"? {= "You are a warm one"}

while over the border in Lancashire is:

Lancashire Songs; Edwin Waugh
"A needle would keep th' body wake, An' th' soul met still be dozin'; But this receipt would set it reet, Iv th' mixture wur a warm un — Yo'm get some stingin' gospel-snuff, An' put it into th' sarmon."

In summary, warm seems to be associated with childhood precocity and naughtiness, spiciness, wealth, sexual attraction and – more generally – with types of egregiousness.

However, more recently I have had the suspicion that some of these uses derive from a simple spoken corruption of Varmint

Merriam Webster
a contemptible person : rascal broadly : person, fellow

Cambridge
an annoying child:
The little varmints stole my wallet!

I add the aural aspect of this question: the pronunciation I knew - and it is exemplified by the Yorkshire Post quotation - was Warm rhyming with Arm.

Add to this the sort of sound shifts we see between Scando-German "warm" (initial "V" sound in German, Swedish and others), the Scandinavian-Viking influence in northern England, all contrasting with the usual English "warm" (initial "w" sound), and you may see the reasons for my notion.

Do you agree with this suspicion?

being built vs built

Posted: 15 Jan 2022 12:42 AM PST

Would someone describe the difference between these two sentences? Are they both syntactically correct with the different meanings?

With fewer iPhones built, it is safe to conclude that sales will be lower.

With fewer iPhones being built, it is safe to conclude that sales will be lower.

Or this one:

With Twitter and Facebook banned, Telegram accounts for about 40 percent of internet traffic.

With Twitter and Facebook being banned, Telegram accounts for about 40 percent of internet traffic.

Present participle Vs past participle

Posted: 15 Jan 2022 03:03 AM PST

Q.My sister was charmed with silk. She bought ten yards.

Ans. Being charmed with silk, my sister bought ten yards.

Deceived by his friends, he lost all hope.

^this is the example of past participle given in my book and the the former is a question from an exercise in my book.

I have a little confusion as to why passive present participle Being charmed with silk is used but not the past participle charmed with silk. I would also like to know when passive present participle is used and when past participle, because both seem to me to have very similar meaning.

Why is it Autism Spectrum Disorder and not Autism Disorder Spectrum?

Posted: 15 Jan 2022 01:31 AM PST

Certainly with Disorder trailing behind "Autism Spectrum" it indicates that the disorder is called Autism Spectrum when spectrum is merely being used to describe that the disorder has a spectrum. Billy is on the Autism Disorder Spectrum vs Billy has the Autism Spectrum Disorder
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