Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

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• What is an Egyptian mummy wrapped in? [closed]
• What term describes the relationship between tenth, hundredth, thousandth and the number ten? [migrated]
• Which one is correct - run off or run off from?
• Are these two sentences the same? [closed]
• Do all the following sentences mean same? [closed]
• Employee or independent contractor?
• What should be used instead of Mister in a formal setting when foreign titles are involved?
• Comparative Correlatives without the verb?
• Term for Market Expansion (growing the Entire Market Size) via Signifincant Price Reduction
• Use of pos­ses­sive apos­tro­phe with the sec­ond word of a com­pound proper noun like “Aus­tralian States”
• Does it sound natural and is it grammatically correct?
• Is it meaningful to say "a few moments"?
• What is grammatically correct to put on wedding regarding themes? [closed]
• A : I wish I didn't have to rhyme Every time I sang VS B : I wish I didn't have to rhyme every time I sing?
• meaning of "cannot be but that" [migrated]
• Fit verb followed by in preposition
• If X is compatible with Y, what is Y in relation to X?
• Is this a dependent clause?
• Why is "strategies to cutting" correct in this sentence?
• Unknown word "visigraph", what could have the author meant to use?
• Do words like Jinn have plural?
• Can present tense be used without an adverb like "usually" or "always" when describing a habit?
• writing decimal numbers as ordinal?
• Accuracy of the term "mother-in-law" in two cases
• What does “bupkes” mean?
• "Trawling through" or "trolling through"
• History and origin of "troubleshoot"?
• Largest open-source dictionary w/ brief definitions (not wiktionary) [closed]

What is an Egyptian mummy wrapped in? [closed] Posted: 23 Apr 2022 11:25 AM PDT Is there a more technical word than just bandage or linen bandage?

What term describes the relationship between tenth, hundredth, thousandth and the number ten? [migrated] Posted: 23 Apr 2022 04:14 PM PDT What term describes the relationship between tenth, hundredth, thousandth, et cetera (1/10, 1/100, 1/1000, ...) and the number ten? (Despite what some may say, I don't accept that "decimal" is the answer.) More specifically, in this context, I'm looking for the opposite of the term "multiple". Ten, hundred, thousand, et cetera are multiples of ten. Tenth, hundredth and thousandth are what of ten? The closest thing I can think of is "multiplicative inverses of multiples of ten". Is there no better choice of word or words?

Which one is correct - run off or run off from? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 10:24 AM PDT They ran off the burning car before it exploded. or They ran off from the burning car before it exploded.

Are these two sentences the same? [closed] Posted: 23 Apr 2022 09:37 AM PDT I'm not sure whether these two sentences mean the same thing. "How is it able to do that?" and "How can it do that?" Thanks

Do all the following sentences mean same? [closed] Posted: 23 Apr 2022 09:21 AM PDT Seeing the policeman, the thief ran away. On seeing the policeman, the thief ran away. After seeing the policeman, the thief ran away. Having seeing the policeman, the thief ran away. The thief ran away after he had seen the policeman.

Employee or independent contractor? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 08:03 AM PDT What are the alternative ways to ask a recruiter this question: Are you hiring an employee or an independent contractor?

What should be used instead of Mister in a formal setting when foreign titles are involved? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 03:00 PM PDT I want to preface this that I am not an English native speaker but I am fluent in the language. I am organizing an event and one of our foreign guests insists on not being called Mister Family_name because he sees it as disrespectful. He has both a PhD and an hereditary title. My boss doesn't want to use Doctor Family_name because it's a professional title. The guest's nobiliary title does not map to any noble hierarchy in the English language. He's simply "not-commoner". As I understand it, "Mister" is only appropriate when the person has no titles. I don't like formalities but I despise incorrect formalities. What is the appropriate way to address a foreign noble?

Comparative Correlatives without the verb? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 05:12 AM PDT When using comparative correlatives in the context of something "being", can the verb be omitted? A classic example of this is "The more, the merrier.", where we refrain are are "The more [there are], the merrier [we are]." That being said, this is an idiom, so perhaps the rules of the language are a bit more lax. My question is, can the same verb-free construction be used in a more formal setting? For example: "The higher the value of x, the greater the effect." (having spoken about "x" and "the effect" in previous sentences). I am a bit thrown off, as there are no (explicit) verbs, but including "is" loses the flow a little bit in my opinion. What's the consensus? Thank you.

Term for Market Expansion (growing the Entire Market Size) via Signifincant Price Reduction Posted: 23 Apr 2022 04:52 AM PDT I am looking for the business term for market expansion (growing the entire market size) via significant price reduction. For example, ~20 years ago, enterprise grade CRM used to be exclusively in the purview of large corporations, costing in the tens to hundreds-of-thousands of dollars, due to bespoke implementations (the only option). Then, Saleforce.com came in with (arguably) the first SaaS software CRM solution and expanded the market by making it significantly more affordable for the average small business, in the hundreds of dollars range. Another example might be Commodore Computers, know for the mantra "Computers for the Masses, Not the Classes" who entered the home computer market with a competitive home computer at a significantly lower price point, making a home computer more affordable at a price in reach for a much larger audience, thus massively expanding the potential customer base and opening the market up to a whole new set of consumers. "Democratization" and "commoditization" are close concepts, but not quite the term I am looking for. Thank you.

Use of pos­ses­sive apos­tro­phe with the sec­ond word of a com­pound proper noun like “Aus­tralian States” Posted: 23 Apr 2022 12:49 PM PDT I have a rel­a­tively sim­ple ques­tion, but I am just a lit­tle con­fused and po­ten­tially mis­in­formed. My un­der­stand­ing is that when plu­ral­is­ing a pos­ses­sive noun, you add an apos­tro­phe af­ter the ‑s. So for ex­am­ple, the par­ents' car or the boys' Play­Sta­tion – I am fairly sure that is cor­rect gram­mar. How­ever, I do not know what the rule is when pre­sented with a com­pound noun such as Aus­tralian States. I will put down three pos­si­bil­i­ties: Be­long­ing to the Aus­tralian States' up­per house of par­lia­ment. Be­long­ing to the Aus­tralian State's up­per house of par­lia­ment. Be­long­ing to the Aus­tralian States up­per house of par­lia­ment. Which one is it? I would ap­pre­ci­ate jus­ti­fied an­swers be­cause this is re­ally bug­ging me!

Does it sound natural and is it grammatically correct? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 04:55 AM PDT I wanted to make a sentence with the phrasal verb "Draw Away" I can't believe my own sister got engaged a week before my wedding, and this whole incident is getting everybody's attention drawn away from me!

Is it meaningful to say "a few moments"? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 10:06 AM PDT I have noticed lots of software installs asking me to wait "a few moments" recently. A moment is an unquantified interval of time that is entirely subjective, so is it meaningful to talk of a few of them?

What is grammatically correct to put on wedding regarding themes? [closed] Posted: 23 Apr 2022 02:45 AM PDT Colour themes Colour theme Colours themes Colours theme Theme colour Theme colours Themes colours Themes colour I am not sure where to put the 'S' correctly or should I not put? People can wear blue, orange, brown etc.

A : I wish I didn't have to rhyme Every time I sang VS B : I wish I didn't have to rhyme every time I sing? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 01:19 AM PDT According to a song I listened to the A option is the correct one. But why is that ? Why is the sing verb put in the past tense ?

meaning of "cannot be but that" [migrated] Posted: 23 Apr 2022 06:16 AM PDT I have a question about the following sentence. It cannot be but that some of the letters will give you pain....(Letters of John Keats to Fanny Brawne) Which does this sentence mean, (a) "some of the letters might give you some pain" or (b) "some of the letter must give you some pain"? Or does this sentence mean something else? I appreciate your help very much.

Fit verb followed by in preposition Posted: 23 Apr 2022 11:52 AM PDT I have a question regarding the usage of the verb "fit", especially when followed by the preposition "in". Now I am aware that there is a "fit in" (as in to become assimilated in a group) idiom but this is not the usage that I have a question on. Could you please help me know when to use the "in" preposition in a regular "fit" scenario? There are several instances where the fit verb does not require the "in" preposition: Does the new meeting time fit your schedule? The concert tickets didn't fit my budget The Free Dictionary has some samples under the "idioms" category for fit in, where they use the "fit" verb in the same sense in which I am trying to use it. Their definition is: To be able to be placed within something because there is sufficient space. However their example then proceeds to use "into" Do these papers fit into that file? I know it's practically bulging at the seams. Cambridge dictionary came up with a better example: How many people can fit in your car? In this last scenario I understand that removing the "in" and just saying that something "fits" my car, turns the meaning into something that "goes well" or "looks good" with the car, therefore I guess this is why they use the "in" preposition. So I am very confused because I cannot understand when to use "fit" followed by "in"

If X is compatible with Y, what is Y in relation to X? Posted: 22 Apr 2022 10:02 PM PDT I have something X that is compatible with something else, Y. So it is correct to say that "X is compatible with Y". Is there a word <word> such that this statement is equivalent to "Y is <word> with X"? More generally, is there a standard way to convert a word <w> into a word <w2> such that "X is <w> to Y" is equivalent to "Y is <w2> to X"?

Is this a dependent clause? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 05:02 PM PDT One can establish their genetic 'distance', which itself can be calibrated to give an indication of the length of time since these populations last interbreed. I thought this was an appositive clause because of itself as a noun. But the answer told me that i was wrong. It said that this was a attributive clause. I was confused by this sentence. I'm so appreciated for your answer.

Why is "strategies to cutting" correct in this sentence? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 08:26 AM PDT I'm reading 'When Breath Becomes Air' by the late Paul Kalanithi, and I came across the sentence: "I could see that there were two strategies to cutting the time short..." My question is why "to cutting" is used rather than "for cutting".

Unknown word "visigraph", what could have the author meant to use? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 03:58 PM PDT I've encountered a word in print which does not exist, and which Google isn't auto-correcting to an existing word. I wonder which word the author had meant to use. Following is the sentence in which the word appears. It's from a fairly well-known novel "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov. At least, it amounted to an ultimatum, though a superficial reading of the visigraphed document would lead one to suppose that it was a friendly interchange of greetings between two potentates.

Do words like Jinn have plural? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 08:10 AM PDT Jinn or djinn is a word we middle east people use for demons. I found this word in an English dictionary too, but it seems that this word is never used in plural form. For example, when you want to say "I was attacked by three demons" it works, and Microsoft Word did not underline it, but when using "Jinns" it seems not correct. What do you think about it? What is the right way to say "three jinns"?

Can present tense be used without an adverb like "usually" or "always" when describing a habit? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 12:07 PM PDT I understand we use the present tense when we describe habits. "My dog always sleeps under the bed." "It usually sits on the sofa." Does it make sense if I leave 'always' and 'usually' out? as in the sentences below, without any background information? "My dog sleeps under the bed." "It sits on the sofa." Are they complete sentences? or grammatically correct?

writing decimal numbers as ordinal? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 05:32 AM PDT How to write 0.1 (ordinal) percentile? E.g. for 1 it would be "first percentile". Would it be "0.1st percentile"?

Accuracy of the term "mother-in-law" in two cases Posted: 23 Apr 2022 08:08 AM PDT Case 1: The wife of a child's father, but not the child's mother (i.e. second >marriage, or bastard child) Case 2: The mother of one's spouse Based on what I've found online, "mother-in-law" is used for the second case. What of the first?

What does “bupkes” mean? Posted: 23 Apr 2022 12:48 PM PDT There was the following passage in the New Yorker's (August 27) article titled, "A scandal at the C.I.A. May be." : In January I (David Shafer, novelist) filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the C.I.A., asking for any information relating to my grandfather and Thomas Whittemore and the events of June 1950. They took two months to give me bupkes. But to give me bupkes, they were required to invoke a FOIA exemption, and the exemption that C.I.A. involved were (b)(3), which means the records are protected by another federal statute, and (b)(1) --- Though I was unable to find the definition of "bupkes" in OED (10th ed.), OALD (2000), and Collins Cobuild (4th ed.) at hand, I happened to find its definition at bageldrive.com, which says "bupkes" is: A mini-bagel deliciously baked to perfection with fully functional USB 2.0 flash memory and a shmeer. It's the world's first electronic bagel. The Bagel Drive is ideal for storing files, photos, video, music and all of your digital tchochkes.　The site also shows photos of USB attached to plastic bagel models. What does bupkes mean? Is it a flash memory in a bagel shape as described in bageldrive.com? Does it pass as the generic term of flash memory? Besides, I wonder why CIA takes bother of using such a funky shape of all flash memories to provide data to the requester.

"Trawling through" or "trolling through" Posted: 23 Apr 2022 05:59 PM PDT There are quite a few discussions online about whether one can "trawl through" or "troll through", looking for something. From what I can see, both are fishing terms so both are legitimate in particular contexts. What I was hoping was to clarify which of the two specifically means "work hard", as in: I had to [trawl/troll] through lots of archives to find what I wanted. A guide I'm reading has the following phrase, which I suspect is used incorrectly: without trolling through each script to find all the files they call

History and origin of "troubleshoot"? Posted: 22 Apr 2022 09:26 PM PDT What is the history of the word "troubleshoot"? At face value, it seems to be mean "aiming for trouble." Which must be short-hand for locating the source of the trouble by reproducing it under different circumstances. How did the term come to be? Who were the first "troubleshooters"? Merriam-Webster says the first known use of the verb was "1918, in the meaning defined at intransitive sense", but doesn't give any more details.

Largest open-source dictionary w/ brief definitions (not wiktionary) [closed] Posted: 23 Apr 2022 05:57 PM PDT What's the largest open-source dictionary that includes brief definitions of each word? Wiktionary is a great resource but: There are over 200K words in the scowl list that aren't in wiktionary. I'd use scowl directly, but it only list words and has no definitions. Wiktionary intentionally includes misspellings (sometimes not marked as such, and sometimes as redirection), and I'm looking for only correctly-spelled words. Wiktionary's definitions are often lengthy, not brief. It's difficult to automatically extract the portion of a wiktionary page that's the definition. I'm somewhat surprised this question isn't in the FAQ, and that I couldn't find the answer by searching this site.

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