Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Usage about "interpret...as..."

Posted: 15 Feb 2022 04:06 AM PST

For example, a guy followed my advice for him on learning English and he can now effectively communicate with people in English though not that great in terms of pronunciation, grammar, etc. While in the past he just could barely make any conversation with people in English. In that situation, which one of these two sentences in question is better?

I interpret it as he has made it.

or

I interpret it as him having made it.

What has it to do [closed]

Posted: 15 Feb 2022 01:38 AM PST

Is this sentence grammatically correct ? What has it to do with selfishness and altruism ?

Shouldn't the right way of saying this be What does it have to do with selfishness and altruism ?

Need some help trying to understand the meaning of a sentence [closed]

Posted: 15 Feb 2022 01:04 AM PST

I'm confused as to the meaning of this sentence I read in a novel. Emma said 'how dare I leave you with your boyfriend who I've not had a single conversation about which he'd want to know' Now is Emma saying she thinks the boyfriend isn't interested in conversing or that the boyfriend would want to converse with Emma because she knows something?

Best single word description for something compact but powerful? [closed]

Posted: 14 Feb 2022 10:27 PM PST

There are plenty of ways to describe this in phrases, but I'm looking for a single word that contains both meanings at the same time to describe an object or person.

Grammar Correct (Which of the following is correct)? [closed]

Posted: 14 Feb 2022 09:32 PM PST

  1. In conclusion, the author is maybe correct in saying that XYZ.
  2. In conclusion, the author maybe is correct in saying that XYZ.

‘Not had a single conversation about which he’d want to know’ [closed]

Posted: 14 Feb 2022 04:43 PM PST

This text came up in a novel and was confused as to whether it meant 'he' was uninterested in having a conversation or 'he' should want to know what the conversation was about

A resource for finding letter frequencies with certain restrictions

Posted: 15 Feb 2022 04:09 AM PST

I'm looking for a resource where I can see the frequencies of letters in with respect to their position inside the word and the length of the word. I'd also like to see the frequencies of different combinations of letters, as in "how often does a word start with an e and end with an a".

To be extra clear: the most common letter in English is e, but the most common third letter is...? And what about the most common fourth letter in five-letters-long words?

I'm specifically interested in the frequencies within dictionaries.

What does ‘Garden Girl’ mean?

Posted: 14 Feb 2022 04:23 PM PST

The following passage was in Lord Tebbit's recent column in The Telegraph:

Mr Pascall wrote that he was "amazed to read that there are now 400 staff in Downing Street" and goes on to say that in Thatcher's day he was one of but seven, alongside Alan Walters (economics) and Alan Parsons (foreign affairs). There was also the principal private secretary and four other private secretaries; about four in the press office under Bernard Ingham; two in the political office; another four in the honours section; Ten garden girls and four or five members of security and police.

What does garden girl mean in this context? I don't think it means 'gardener' (nor is professional groundskeeper necessarily a women-only occupation), since that wouldn't usually be counted as staff in Downing Street, but I also have no idea what alternative meaning could be attributed.

Oxymoron pronunciation [closed]

Posted: 15 Feb 2022 03:17 AM PST

I have a question about the pronunciation of the word 'OXYMORON'.

Some dictionaries it says the word should be pronounced as:

ˌɑkˈsiˈmɔrɑn, with the 'EE', vowel. (For example https://www.thefreedictionary.com/oxymoron)

However, some others dictionaries, say the word should be pronounced as '.ˌɑkˈsɪˈmɔrɑn with the 'IH' vowel instead of the 'EE' Vowel. (For example https://www.lexico.com/definition/oxymoron)

Whenever I listen to the pronunciation of these word on Youglish, where you can listen to many examples being said by many speakers, it does sound more like the 'EE', vowel, but I could be wrong.

I'd love your help!

Top down or bottom up for reducing a sentence to all its parts?

Posted: 14 Feb 2022 08:10 PM PST

I'm still learning grammar. I'm trying to figure out the steps to break down a sentence. My process now is to look at the sentence as a whole first. Then I classify it as either simple, compound, complex, etc. Then I classify it again as either declarative, imperative, etc. Then I work out the subject and predicate and label them by clause type; main, subordinate, adjectival, noun. Then I break the clauses into structures like subject+verb, subject+transverb+direct, etc, etc.

Now I'm trying to identify all the phrases and I'm getting stuck. So I'm moving to a bottom-up approach by looking at words on their own to see if they are nouns, verbs. phrases, whatever. So that I might make phrases out of them. But I'm getting stuck at this point.

Anyway, my question is what is the best way to break down a sentence into all its levels, from the words/parts of speech all the way up to the clauses and sentence?

Should you start with the sentence and begin chopping it into smaller and smaller chunks (clauses, phrases, etc), as I've been trying to do, or should you identify the word types first and then build them up (bottom-up approach)? Is there a formula I can follow like a recipe to accomplish this?

Pattern: adjective/noun + in + ing

Posted: 15 Feb 2022 01:06 AM PST

everyone. I have a question regarding the usage of "in" in this pattern:

Adjective/noun + in + V-ing

Like in this sentence:

  1. «Light takes such a long time in crossing the enormous distances and getting to us.»

But, I was wondering if it could work without "in":

  1. «Light takes such a long time crossing the enormous distances and getting to us.»

Or, even with infinitive:

  1. «Light takes such a long time to cross the enormous distances and getting to us.»

I would like to know how to use this patten, in what context and what rules I should follow to use it correctly.

I've been searching on the internet, but there is little information about this topic and it's not really helpful. Here are some other examples I found:

  1. This NPO plays a central role in proposing environmental policies.

  2. He's taking a long time in making that pastry

Thanks you in advanced, I'd be really thankful if you help me understand it.

"laying it out there"

Posted: 14 Feb 2022 05:00 PM PST

"The child is not mine. I found out through one of her friends."

"Why hasn't she told you?"

"I don't know. I guess she just felt more comfortable not laying it out there."

"You must be angry."

"I am."

Is the third sentence perfectly natural in American English? Can "laying it out there" mean to mention something to someone?

What do you call a person who does not like to share things even though he/she has two or three of the same things?

Posted: 15 Feb 2022 12:58 AM PST

She has 5 headphones but she does not like to share even though we live under the same roof.

Origins of the phrase “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”?

Posted: 14 Feb 2022 08:52 PM PST

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

This phrase is famously used in Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan. The metaphor itself is so simple and powerful I'm sure it would've been a proverb by now had we weather forecasts a couple of hundred years ago. Now imagine my surprise when I learned that Dylan apparently coined the phrase himself:

Most famously, its lyric "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" was the inspiration for the name of the American radical left group the Weathermen, a breakaway from the Students for a Democratic Society. In a 2007 study of legal opinions and briefs that found Bob Dylan was quoted by judges and lawyer more than any other songwriter, "you don't need a weatherman..." was distinguished as the line most often cited.

Does this mean that there is no factual evidence of this phrase being used prior to the song, or did he just make an existing phrase (more) popular?

I'm not trying to belittle Dylan's influence—just plain curious how far it extends in this case.
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