Thursday, May 12, 2022

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Using "would rather"

Posted: 12 May 2022 12:51 AM PDT

  1. I would rather take the stairs than take the elevator. (infinitive form of the verb after than)
  2. I would rather take the steps than taking the elevator. (-ing form of the verb after than)

Which one is the correct expression?

"Chinese yuan" or "RMB"?

Posted: 11 May 2022 11:21 PM PDT

Which is more often used in daily conversation, "Chinese yuan" or "RMB"?

I personally think it would be "RMB", or full name, "Ren Min Bi"(人民币), but some people said that no one outside China understands this. So I am confused now.

If "Chinese yuan" is the answer, would the simplified case "yuan" be a better choice?

Difference between 'far', far off' and 'far out'?

Posted: 12 May 2022 12:32 AM PDT

I am a native Spanish speaker and this is getting me really frustrated.

Online dictionaries all give the same meaning for all these far + prep expressions, all say the same thing "a great distance" basically, but no disambiguation is given. It is really frustrating to encounter these situations where no disambiguation is provided so I come here asking for help from native English speakers.

What is the difference in meaning among all these expressions with far?

What does this short paragraph mean? [closed]

Posted: 11 May 2022 07:25 PM PDT

So either I'll get more frustrated, I'll think we'll be damned if I am going to set here and have it go that way. And then they are mobilized and they do sth or sadness comes stronger and then they figure out what is that you know that action are just being stronger . then what will they do from that perspective? Or maybe ot will turn into some other completely different. but that is the essence here is, if we can wake up to what our habitual patterns are as therapists, as parents, as people and you can catch it. And then with real attention not do you usual"

In the sentence that reads: "Why would contributing to society be ______ beneficial?" What past participle would fit in the blank? [closed]

Posted: 11 May 2022 07:14 PM PDT

In the sentence that "reads": "Why would contributing to society be ______ beneficial?" What past participle would fit in the sentence?

What part of speech is the word "earn" in the sentence: "Why do people earn currency"? [closed]

Posted: 11 May 2022 06:39 PM PDT

What part of speech is the word "earn" in the sentence: "Why do people earn currency"?

What type of verb is the word "considered" in the sentence "It is considered unlawful"? [closed]

Posted: 11 May 2022 05:51 PM PDT

What type of verb is the word considered in the sentence:"it is considered unlawful"?

Hyphenating large numbers in compound adjectives

Posted: 11 May 2022 08:06 PM PDT

For situations in which you need to spell out large numbers in a compound...

Which of the four options would you say is correct?

example 1

  • a five-hundred-page book
  • a five-hundred page book
  • a five hundred-page book
  • a five hundred page book

example 2

  • a ten-thousand-yen bill
  • a ten-thousand yen bill
  • a ten thousand-yen bill
  • a ten thousand yen bill

My understanding is it would be the first option for each. A five-hundred-page book (a book that has five hundred pages) vs five hundred-page books (five books that have a hundred pages each). A ten-thousand-yen bill (a single note worth ten thousand yen) vs ten thousand-yen bills (ten notes each worth a thousand yen). I've scoured the internet for anything on this matter, but none of the sites I've found ever give an example along these lines. (They just say things like "five hundred houses" and "ten thousand hamsters," etc.)

What is the "-sie" suffix meaning?

Posted: 11 May 2022 05:37 PM PDT

While playing Thief: The Dark Project, I noticed the use of the suffix "-sie" in some words, for example: woodsie, goodsie, treesie, etc. I struggled to find an explanation for this and since the game uses Early Modern English heavily, I figured it was some kind of "archaic" use of "-y" suffix, but I didn't find any source on this nor makes sense to me (I'm not a native speaker). Is this pidgin or just a fictional word to add to the fictional universe of the game?

Examples from Thief's loading screens:

"[...] hammers saws tear the skin of goodsie wood... ...and laughs at the Woodsie Lord."

"In summer times do Beesie flew, maple pines and grackles coo, The grassies sweet with nectars dew, til Harvest time when Him eat you." - Pagan chant

What type of word is the word: "called" in the sentence: "It is called sarcasm"? [closed]

Posted: 11 May 2022 04:51 PM PDT

What type of verb is "called" and whats its purpose to the word "sarcasm" after it?

"IF" CLAUSES and the use of WERE [duplicate]

Posted: 11 May 2022 03:46 PM PDT

I found this example in The Guardian: If there were ever a time to join us, it is now.

Ruling out it is a hypothesis, I found it hard to understand the use of were in the sentence. Can somebody explain? Thanks!

If I'm ranting I'm the ranter. So is the subject of said rant the rantee? Or the person hearing it? What's the other called, then?

Posted: 11 May 2022 04:35 PM PDT

...and do they have a suffix of their own?

Cambridge says "-er" is "added to [...] verbs to form nouns that refer to people or things that [do/are performing] that particular activity". Okay, that's clear.

But then, in contrast: "-ee" is "added to a verb to form a noun that refers to the person to whom the action of the verb is being done".

So in this example, presupposing the listener of said rant is not the subject of same, are they the rantee (since the ranting is directed towards them)? Or is it the person the rant is about (since the dialog is about them)?

And what's the third leg of the triad called? Do they get a suffix?

Reflecting on it, were I the debater, and my opponent the debatee, the topic being debated would be the "debated", right? The "ranted" doesn't sound right, either.

(I'm aware the -ee/-er is more a convention than a firm grammatical rule, like double-plurals ("fishes of the sea") or the faux-Latinization of words ending in "us" ("styli"/"stylus", "cacti"/"cactus", "panini"/"paninus"), but I'm hoping to better understand the implicit rules surrounding the convention).

In the sentence "it is considered thoughtful of you." What type of adjective is the word: "thoughtful"? [closed]

Posted: 11 May 2022 03:46 PM PDT

What type of adjective is the word "thoughtful"?

Metaphorical Meaning of "The Offing"

Posted: 11 May 2022 03:18 PM PDT

Question

I would like to know whether the title of Benjamin Myers's novel The Offing can be interpreted as a metaphor for "going away", "vanishing", "deceasing". I am not a native speaker, and I would like to know how plausible this interpretation is for native speakers, or if there are maybe even obvious arguments that would make native speakers reject such an interpretation.

Context of the Novel

I just have read Benjamin Myers's novel The Offing. I have read it in German translation. The German title is Die offene See ("the open sea", "the deep sea"). I have looked up the offing both in English dictionaries (Oxford Dictionary and Merriam Webster) and in an English-German dictionary. All dictionaries confirm that the offing means something like

the part of the deep sea seen from the shore

The novel is set close to the sea and it contains a story of a woman who has committed suicide in the sea, Romy. There is one reference where word the offing is used in the novel. In that instance, the word is actually referring to the sea in a literal, non-metaphorical way. Part of the novel are also some poems written by Romy. These poems have both the sea and suicide as their subjects. One of the poems is called The Offing and it deals with suicide.

Associations of the Word Outside of the Novel's Context

Off

off means as much as "away", "out", and to off so. apparently is a slang word meaning "to kill someone". That is why, to me, the title gives raise to associations such as "going away", "vanishing", "deceasing". I tend to interpret the title as a metaphor, underlining once more the parallel between suicide and the open sea which I see established by the novel.

Second Meaning of the offing

Merriam Webster has a second meaning of the offing:

the near or foreseeable future

I feel that this also reduces the plausibility of my interpretation, as it strengthens other associations as conventionally established. My associations, in contrast, seem rather far-flung.

Other Metaphorical Interpretations

I have also found a review of the novel in The Guardian. The review is touching the meaning of the title, but does not really consider the metaphorical meaning I was thinking of:

The title, too, is resonant. The offing is "the distant stretch of sea where sky and water merge", and it's a perfect metaphor for invisible transition.

Although the author of the review also sees the offing as a metaphor, they interpret it as a different metaphor. The novel is also a coming-of-age story of the first person narrator, a young man from the countryside named Robert. The review relates the metaphor of the offing to the development of Robert, and not to Romy:

As we read, Robert's adolescence and adulthood meet, while he tries to comprehend a worldly and sophisticated woman who embodies fearless independence.

Of course, both interpretations are not an outright contradiction. They can both be true at the same time. But the fact that the author of the review is considering the title to be a metaphor, but a different one, reduces the plausibility of my hypothesis.

Where should I place modifiers in a sentence? [closed]

Posted: 11 May 2022 02:20 PM PDT

I'm unsure where to put these in my sentences and what they are.

To describe something as a 'quarter' or 'half' of something do they need to be of a certain size?

Posted: 11 May 2022 01:50 PM PDT

If I split something into two unequally sized pieces can I say for example, this is 'my half', or I have the 'bigger half' of a cake? I hear this a lot with natural English speakers. If I split something into three pieces, with one having 25% of the area, such as a pie chart, I would take the section with 25% of the area and call it a 'quarter' of the chart, no matter if there are three pieces. Is it based on what percentage of the whole is divided or how many parts it is split into?

Number of times vs total number of times

Posted: 11 May 2022 03:43 PM PDT

What is the difference between saying "number of times that user accessed the site" vs "total number of times that user accessed the site"?

I feel that they mean the same thing but could not find a resource to support my assumption.

Common names for head-to-head single-elimination tournament rounds (knockout, sudden death, competition, bracket)

Posted: 11 May 2022 06:50 PM PDT

Head-to-head knockout tournaments are common across a number of areas (various sports, games, and best-of contests for music/art/flag types, for example). This has resulted in many tournaments having rounds of one, two, four, eight, 16, 32, and so on. This has also had the consequence of more colloquial terminology for each of these rounds. In documenting a large music tournament recently, I both found that later-round terminology was second nature and that I wanted corresponding colloquial earlier-round terminology.

This raises the question: what terms/phrases are available for the set of teams at various stages of single-elimination head-to-head tournaments?

Some additional context (not to preclude said info from appearing in an answer). For clarity, despite the anecdote I'm not interested in knowing narrowly about what different sporting bodies use; I want to know what English phrases I can use to refer to the field of entries at each stage of a knockout bracket (especially for, i.e., the participants of the round of 32, for which I don't have one with any currency).

Single-elimination head-to-head tournaments (where matches are between two players) arise in a variety of contexts. The Wikipedia page on single-elimination tournaments gives an overview of single-elimination tournaments as well as some examples with that head-to-head format.

To give probably the most famous example in the US (and by extent, American English), the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament (also known as March Madness) has evolved a standard terminology for the round of 16 ("Sweet 16"), round of eight ("Elite Eight"), and round of four ("Final Four")².

I grew up in the US, and I can say that "Final Four", and "Top Two" are my predominant nomenclature for these situations, and "Sweet 16" and "Elite Eight" are what I arrive at when I reach past "Round of 16" and "Round of Eight". Whether (in the case of the shared terms) this is because of the tournament's influence, concurrent emergence, or the terms predating that tournament I cannot say, although I will note that I have little interest in sports and my primary exposure to that tournament is due to its extreme topical prevalence.

How do I write a quotation mark inside quotation mark?

Posted: 11 May 2022 05:05 PM PDT

I know that the convention is to use a single quotation inside double quotation marks. But what do I do when I must quote double quotation marks?

For instance, suppose I type "adv:Monday" in a search engine block. And I must convey to my readers that "adv:Monday" is exactly what I had typed in the search engine.

If I write I searched "'adv:Monday'", I would be making a factually incorrect statement, albeit it'd be a grammatically correct one.

Does "X is prone to Y" imply frequency, or severity, or both/either?

Posted: 11 May 2022 04:04 PM PDT

In my understanding, the phrase "X is prone to Y" is used to exclusively express the idea that Y is something that frequently happens to X, or (near-equivalently) that Y is particularly likely to happen to X. For example, if you suggested someone was "accident-prone", that would imply that they frequently suffer from accidents.

Google ("Google's English dictionary is provided by Oxford Languages.") gives the following sample statement for 'prone': "farmed fish are prone to disease". Under the above usage of prone, this would imply that farmed fish are likely to suffer from disease, with emphasis on the 'likely' rather than the 'suffer', i.e. these fish become diseased at a higher rate. (The supplied definition is "Likely or liable to suffer from, do, or experience something unpleasant or regrettable.")

It is clear to me that this sense of "likely" is (at least one) accepted / correct usage for 'prone'.

However, I also see 'prone' being used with a slightly different meaning, whereby "X is prone to Y" is used to express that Y has a particularly devastating effect on X, without regard to its likelihood or frequency of occurrence.

In the above example with the fish, this would be interpreted as "farmed fish are not necessarily more likely to become diseased, but if they do happen to become diseased, they tend to have worse outcomes".

In some cases, as with this fish example, this causes ambiguity because both of the two interpretations are sensible but have distinct meanings. In the case of this fish example, both interpretations can even be true at the same time.

As another example "Racing team X's car is prone to crashes":

  1. It's considered likely to crash, or does crash frequently. (Perhaps the driver is untalented or the car has an unstable/faulty design), OR:
  2. A crash would be especially disastrous. (Perhaps the car is made from less-durable components, or built in a way that repairs are challenging or expensive).

In some situations, the context implies that the second 'severity' meaning is the only valid interpretation, something like the following:

"Buildings made of papier-mâché are prone to earthquakes".

Of course, constructing a building from fragile materials doesn't summon earthquakes to the area. From the context it is clear that the intended meaning is that if an earthquake were to happen then the consequences would be dire, not that the building is more likely to be hit by an earthquake.

However, even if I understand this intention after reading the sentence, it still strikes me as incorrect, or at least clumsy. The possibility of this being a valid usage of 'prone' seems to invite confusion in many contexts, yet I see it being used for this 'severity' meaning fairly frequently. (This is merely something I have recently noticed in my own anecdotal experience of informal or conversational English, I'm not trying to claim the word is being used this way universally or as a wider trend).

So there would be a few possible resolutions, feel free to propose anything else you can think of:

  1. The "papier-mâché" sentence is an incorrect usage of the word 'prone'. The word only refers to the concept of likelihood/frequency. The sentence could be fixed by instead saying "Buildings made of papier-mâché are prone to being damaged in earthquakes", which then correctly refers to the likelihood of the building being damaged given that an earthquake has happened to it.
  2. Both meanings are valid/correct, but stylistically the word should not be used unless the meaning is obvious from the context.
  3. Both meanings are valid/correct, the concept of likelihood/frequency should be taken as the 'default' meaning in cases of ambiguity.
  4. Both meanings are valid/correct, in cases of ambiguity the reader should assume both meanings apply.
  5. Something else?

"Numbers": mass noun

Posted: 11 May 2022 04:01 PM PDT

Garner reads

Although enough modifies either count nouns or mass nouns, enough stamina, sufficient should modify only mass nouns, so the usage problem can be solved by making it sufficient numbers of.

There are exceptions to the general rule: sufficient (or more often insufficient) funds.

Mass noun: Also termed noncount/uncountable noun

Is numbers a mass noun? For the AHD, both numbers and funds are "plural only" nouns.

Indicative vs subjunctive in terms of conveying meaning

Posted: 11 May 2022 04:58 PM PDT

In A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (page 156), the book gives these examples for WERE-SUBJUNCTIVE (for showing the structural differences between indicative vs subjunctive constructions):

  • If I/he/she was leaving, you would have heard about it. [indicative]
  • If I/he/she were leaving, you would have heard about it. [subjunctive]

Later the book describes the were-subjunctive as:

The were-subjunctive (or past subjunctive) is hypothetical or unreal in meaning.

As I said, I know the structural properties of subjunctive constructions but I wonder what a native speaker of English language grasps/understands when hearing/reading those above mentioned examples (in terms of meaning)

Is "know the drill" used in American English as well as UK English in a daily conversation?

Posted: 11 May 2022 05:30 PM PDT

Some of my American friends say this is truly American expression.

And I found this comment; "Get prepared and ready for your punishment" (especially if you have already been punished before) either corporal: getting the cane for some serious misbehaviour in school pre-1980s; or for relatively minor infractions in the Army: doing 20 push-ups, or whatever is the usual/ preferred penalty of the training sergeant etc….

I could use your help.

"Calling a spade a spade": synonymous expressions?

Posted: 12 May 2022 01:24 AM PDT

I'm looking for expressions that are equivalent to

"calling a spade a spade."

In some environments and verbal contexts, this phrase needs to be avoided -- please take my word for it.

Thank you.

UPDATE

I shouldn't have used the gerund in my question. Where I need to use this sort of expression is in a discussion I'm losing patience with, and I want to say, effectively, let's not pussyfoot around with euphemisms. @Tushar Raj's I'm going to tell it like it is, and @undergroundmonorail's Let's not mince words here, both work quite well. Thank you all.

In response to @Pharap,

Do you have evidence that someone has taken offence at this before or is this merely preemptive?

I want to avoid problems. I live in a small town where everybody has their sensitivities. I was once in a hiring committee where a person objected to someone calling one of the candidates a "dark horse." I believe I read that some town in California decided not to use the term "manhole covers" any more because of the "man" syllable.

What is the origin of "dox" and "doxing"?

Posted: 11 May 2022 04:27 PM PDT

Wikipedia has a solid description of what "doxing" is:

Doxing is the Internet-based practice of researching and publishing personally identifiable information about an individual.

They also make a claim that the word is an abbreviation for "document tracing" but none of their sources confirm this. It seems like a completely unsubstantiated claim. Terms that appear in internet culture are notoriously hard to track but I'm finding it hard to believe that "dox" is short for "document tracing" considering the only relevant part of the longer phrase is "doc".

One of their linked sources even disagrees:

The term "dox" (also spelt "doxx", and short for "[dropping] documents").

Does anyone know how long this term has been used and where it originated? Is it really an abbreviation for "document tracing"?

A word for the "urge" to point out others' minor mistakes, not to define this phenomenon

Posted: 11 May 2022 03:56 PM PDT

The words "nitpicking" and "pedantic" actually define this phenomenon of pointing out others' minor mistakes. I have only this urge to do the nitpicking; I don't necessarily point out that petty mistake but I really have this urge to do the nitpicking and give a damn care to the exasperated sighs.

So, is there a good word for this "urge to do the nitpicking"?

Again, I am not asking for words that define this nitpicking phenomenon, just the urge to uphold it.

Edit (choosing the answer):

I kind of liked the phrase obsessive-compulsive corrector suggested by GMB below... its only shortcoming being its being sort of a medical jargon (as well as a phrase).

Then I rediscovered the term twitch, which relates broadly to my urge.

Ermanen came up with probably the best answer — censorious. At first, I didn't like the word, since it described me as a person who finds fault in almost everything. But I guess I can soften it — "I am just a little bit of censorious."

How are diminutives formed in recent English words?

Posted: 11 May 2022 05:24 PM PDT

A large variety of suffixes were used to form diminutives in English. The Wikipedia page on diminutives shows these:

  • -k/-ock/-uck: balk, bollock, bullock, buttock, fetlock, folk, hark, hillock, jerk, mark, mattock (OE mattuc), milk, mullock, pillock, smirk, snack, spark, stalk, talk, whelk, work, yolk
  • -n/-en/-on (accusative or feminine): burden, chicken, even, heaven (OE heofon), kitten, maiden, morn, oven, steven, vixen, weapon (OE wæpen)
  • -le (defrequentative -l): beetle, boodle, chortle, doodle (shares root with dude, P doudo, dolt, dull, dote, dotterel), fizzle, giggle, kibble, little, mickle, noodle, oodle, puddle, riddle, sparkle
  • -ish (disparative): boyish, fiftyish, girlish, largish, mannish, noonish, reddish, smallish, tallish, twelveish, womanish
  • -s (degenitive): Becks, Betts, Wills
  • -sie/-sies/-sy (babytalk assimilative or from patrici- of Patsy): bitsy, footsie (1930), halfsies, onesies, popsy (1860), teensy-weensy, tootsie (1854), twosies, Betsy, Patsy, Robsy
  • -o (American devocative, later Commonwealth): bucko, daddio, garbo, kiddo, smoko, wacko, Jacko, Ricko,
  • -er/-ers/-ster (agentive, intensive, hýpocoristic, also elided hrotic -a): bonkers (1948), preggers (1940), starkers (1905), Becker[s], Lizzers, Hankster, Patster
  • -a (Geordie assimilative -er): Gazza, Macca
  • -z (geordie degenitive -s): Bez, Chaz, Gaz

That same page also contains a list of suffixes of diminutive loanwords, such as:

  • -ling (Norse defrequentative-patrinominative): darling, duckling, fingerling, gosling, underling

The suffix -ling, for example, was used to form the following words:

Most of the words shown above are old words that have been used for centuries. Are there any more recent English words (let's say, from the past few decades) that have been formed with diminutive suffixes? If yes, which words and suffixes are those?
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