Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange |
- What is the predicate part of the sentence in an "X is ___ed" pattern?
- Problems with 'future' and articles
- A person who threatens with legal troubles
- Usage of "Please see"
- What's the one-word for a plan which is always discussed and planned but it never happens? [closed]
- What is meant by shoots? [closed]
- Does any dialect merge "cold" and "culled"?
- Welcome to or welcome to the
- looney tunes show S1E3 - doubt about writing/listening [closed]
- What does Cristiano Ronaldo mean when used as an adjective? [migrated]
- What's the counterpart to "enemy"? [closed]
- A word to describe that you ate too much so you don't like it anymore now
- present participle in there be sentences [duplicate]
- Why is weekend so called in the U.S., when it is not the end of the week by the reckoning that is standard there?
- When a disability is seen as a good thing
- can we use inversion after "then"
- Which grammar "it being dragged" is using in this context [closed]
- What’s the word for when you know how to build something but don’t know how it works?
- Even if I'm not the author-in-question, would the subtitle, "A Chrestomathic Compendium" be appropriate for the following[?]:
- Pluralising abbreviations ending in S
- "Lost challenge" clearly showing a reversal of expectations
- Most common term for insect repellent in AmE
- Why is "plumbing" used, and what does "new lows" mean?
- Is there a grammatical difference with this IDO pronoun then possessive pronoun, or vice versa?
- Formal version of "as and when needed"
- Can a person be an oxymoron?
- Love in a hating way
- How do you describe a young woman who, while pretty when seen from behind, is ugly when seen from the front?
- What adjective (other than "last") means "most-recent previous"?
| What is the predicate part of the sentence in an "X is ___ed" pattern? Posted: 14 Jun 2022 08:20 AM PDT Basically, this derives from an NLP problem I am facing in software development. NLP stands for "Natural Language Processing", and it is ML dependent. Since it depends on ML, it is naturally slightly wrong almost all of the time. In this case, an NLP tool I am using has decomposed one part of sentence one way, and a different similar sentence (below) another. I need to know the truth.
In the sentence above, if:
Then which part of the sentence is:
In specific terms? |
| Problems with 'future' and articles Posted: 14 Jun 2022 07:42 AM PDT I'm a teacher and was doing articles with my students. This sentence, however, really got me stuck! We are entering (an) uncertain future. Why an indefinite article here? At first, I thought it was because future wasn't countable, but of course, it is. Then, I wondered if was an abstract concept. Is it because it's a non-defined/non-specific future i.e., one of 'any' futures, which is uncertain? Any suggestions welcome! Thanks, An English teacher. |
| A person who threatens with legal troubles Posted: 14 Jun 2022 06:49 AM PDT What are some best words/phrases/sentences to describe a person who warns you of complaining to authorities or sue in court for trivial things when they appear to be breaking the law, even though there is no intention. For example, a spouse accusing his/her partner of holding hostage when asked to stay at home for the evening, Or that they have threat for life if the other person just clenches their fist in anger etc. |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2022 07:40 AM PDT English is not my native language and I need some help understanding the following sentence:
What should be understood from such a sentence? |
| What's the one-word for a plan which is always discussed and planned but it never happens? [closed] Posted: 14 Jun 2022 03:57 AM PDT My cousin just keeps on planning that we will go here, do this, do that..... but it never happens. And in the next meet also the same cycle repeats. So I was just wondering what is the appropriate word for the things that are planned but never happen? |
| What is meant by shoots? [closed] Posted: 14 Jun 2022 04:08 AM PDT
What does shoots mean used in the sentence? |
| Does any dialect merge "cold" and "culled"? Posted: 14 Jun 2022 06:22 AM PDT I'm a native American English speaker who pronounces Some mergers like cot/caught are well-known, but I'm wondering if my problem is just individual. In hindsight I've been asked to repeat myself when saying words like "pulse" or "bulb". I grew up in NYC and am a heritage Chinese speaker. |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2022 01:06 AM PDT There is a hotel called "Acasa Suites". Which is the correct way to greet the guests. Welcome to Acasa Suites or Welcome to the Acasa Suites? |
| looney tunes show S1E3 - doubt about writing/listening [closed] Posted: 14 Jun 2022 12:18 AM PDT in 0:21 ~ 0:26, I understood something like:
but, I don't know if I heard correctly, besides I didn't understand some words that Porky Pig says and what's he talking about(meaning of context and words used). Could someone guide me? |
| What does Cristiano Ronaldo mean when used as an adjective? [migrated] Posted: 13 Jun 2022 11:46 PM PDT The context is "[something] is so Cristiano Ronaldo". I saw this more than 3 times in different places not related to sports. I know he is a great, famous football player, but I don't know what word can be used to sum up his image in the public mind. So, does this mean [something] is so brilliant or so cool? Or just because the speaker is the fans of Ronaldo? |
| What's the counterpart to "enemy"? [closed] Posted: 13 Jun 2022 10:00 PM PDT If your "enemies" are those you want to harm or kill, what's the word for those you want to support or enable? |
| A word to describe that you ate too much so you don't like it anymore now Posted: 14 Jun 2022 12:44 AM PDT In our native language we have a word for saying that you can't eat something because you ate too much of it and now you don't like the taste of it (for some time). When and how we use it:
Instead of 'I ate too much', we say the word. Is there a better word/sentence to use there? |
| present participle in there be sentences [duplicate] Posted: 13 Jun 2022 06:10 PM PDT "There is a man sitting under the tree. " How to explain the "sitting" grammatically? |
| Posted: 13 Jun 2022 06:56 PM PDT It is well known that in some parts of the world Monday is generally regarded as the first day of the week, while in others that status is bestowed on Sunday. Given that, in a continuously repeating cycle, any choice of a particular point as its beginning is ultimately arbitrary, it is, of course, not surprising that different societies have adopted different conventions on this matter. (These two are not the only ones, but are the ones that are relevant to this question.) The United States follows the latter convention: people in the United States expect to see each week on their calendars as a period that starts with a Sunday and ends with a Saturday. Now, weekend as we now know it, is a U.S. invention. The practice of organising employment in a way that provides for most people not working on both Saturday and Sunday first appeared in the U.S. in early twentieth century, became common in that country in the decades that followed, and then spread to most of the world after the Second World War. The use of the word weekend for Saturday and Sunday, considered together, presumably spread together with the practice itself. (Sporadic uses of that word can apparently be found as early as the seventeenth century, but they obviously did not have the same purpose.) The question is: how did the U.S. invention of keeping Saturday and Sunday free for leisure get associated with the term weekend, when the Saturday-Sunday period does not constitute the end of the week in the way the calendar is usually presented in that country (as Sunday is seen as the first day of the next week)? |
| When a disability is seen as a good thing Posted: 13 Jun 2022 10:58 PM PDT Ableism
Disableism (not found in MW)
That sounds pretty much the same thing, with barely a sliver of light between them. In some of the support groups I participate on, ableism, ableist also indicate the belief that able people are superior to disabled people. What word or phrase expresses the opposite viewpoint? That a disability is a positive thing, and even sometimes makes the sufferer superior? "Her (superiority definition) _______ gave her the ability to see what nobody else could see" I am thinking on Greta Thunberg at this point. So "super power" has already been considered. Remember Cat Steven's Moon Shadow?
That is only looking on the positive side, a form of rationalization....I am looking for something more. Surprisingly, the song does not ever reference loss of audition. Context: I used to have a friend called Dreck, and he was deaf and probably autistic. He once expressed to me that he could not stand being around a bunch of argumentative people, and was glad that he was deaf so that he could focus on the moment, and also consider patterns that others could not see. He called it "background noise". |
| can we use inversion after "then" Posted: 14 Jun 2022 04:12 AM PDT In the following sentence, the inversion structure has been used because of "then" or does it have another reason?
Actually this was a test in our country's university entrance exam: The first moving pictures were simple "shadow shows" or " shadow plays". ............... projected painted glass slides on to a screen.
I looked the answer in the answer sheet and it was the first one. I just wanted to know " do we use the inversion structure after "then"? |
| Which grammar "it being dragged" is using in this context [closed] Posted: 14 Jun 2022 01:50 AM PDT I come across to this context,could anyone explain what happened here? I guess it's kinda reduction but I'm not sure about it.
|
| What’s the word for when you know how to build something but don’t know how it works? Posted: 13 Jun 2022 06:43 PM PDT Is there a word for when you can build something like an engine but don't quite know how it works; you are just replicating it from instructions written decades before. Basically like a hyperdrive from Star Wars. Obi-Wan Kenobi examined the hyperdrive but it was _ and nobody knew how it worked. |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2022 12:24 AM PDT This work would be a "Selections" or "Compendium" of works by an author, where I select passages, quotes, or otherwise an ordering of his works, wholesale, given in an order that presents their whole opus as one, linear project; a timeline of the development of their "one goal" of their writing? Namely, the project would be rearranging "abridged"/selections (so, yes, "selections",) [but "compendium" is an intentionally used word (hence my capitalizing of 'selections' and 'compendium'),] where the rearrangement would present a cohesive, linear presentation, rather than the more broken-up style of the author-in-question. So would the title "Chrestomathic Compendium" be appropriate for that kind of project? (Research:) (Collin's Dictionary) chrestomathy:
H.L. Mencken's preface to his "A Mencken Chrestomathy" provides a good description of the word, and can serve as rationale for my "research", at least, if not also a good place for defining the term. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) compendium:
And I feel "selections" is a broad enough term to be used as a general descriptor... |
| Pluralising abbreviations ending in S Posted: 14 Jun 2022 07:34 AM PDT From general Googling, I understand it is correct to add an 's' (lower case) if pluralising abbreviations ending in 'S' and this makes sense. However, I am surprised to have so far found no instances of this having been done with the word microelectromechanical systems, which always appears as MEMS (rather than MEMSs). One on which I find myself truly stuck is power electronics, machines and drives. Again, the abbreviation is always PEMD. However, since it contains several plurals, is a single lower-case s on the end correct? Any help regarding this would be much appreciated. I am beginning to wonder whether it makes sense to use singular abbreviations regardless. Obviously, one needs to be consistent. |
| "Lost challenge" clearly showing a reversal of expectations Posted: 14 Jun 2022 06:03 AM PDT In a scenario where the conventional thinking that when A competes with B, A would win / get the upper hand, but where last findings in date show that B has the upper hand, I'm trying to phrase this idea in a concise way that highlights the logic:
While this is probably acceptable, I don't feel the reversal of expectations has been conveyed clearly. |
| Most common term for insect repellent in AmE Posted: 13 Jun 2022 10:52 PM PDT What is the most common term for a substance that discourages insects from landing on you? I tried Ngram and the results favored insect repellent. However, bug spray yields more results in a Google search. Another popular term is bug repellent. Which term is most commonly used in casual AmE? |
| Why is "plumbing" used, and what does "new lows" mean? Posted: 14 Jun 2022 08:11 AM PDT
Can you explain why "plumbing" is used and what "new lows" means? |
| Is there a grammatical difference with this IDO pronoun then possessive pronoun, or vice versa? Posted: 14 Jun 2022 08:05 AM PDT
|
| Formal version of "as and when needed" Posted: 14 Jun 2022 12:15 AM PDT Is there any formal version of "as and when needed" for written English? |
| Posted: 13 Jun 2022 06:27 PM PDT I was thinking about how I walk to work while listening to “The Magnificent Seven” by The Clash, which depicts the stupidity of work. I thought that, in a way, is an oxymoron—listening to music that hates work while walking to work. It then spurred a runaway thought train: what if a person looks slender but has bodily strength that matches a champion weightlifter’s—is that an oxymoron? Or are oxymorons used for feelings (like bittersweet)? I know the attributes aren’t next to each other like a traditional oxymoron, but it’s not a contradiction because you’re not going against yourself. So what is it? |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2022 08:13 AM PDT Is there a single word (or a two-word phrase at least) that means "love in a hating way (hatefully, execrably)"? There is the term "Love–hate relationship" but it is more of a psychological term:
I'm mainly looking for a noun (or possibly an adjective or a verb). An example sentence:
|
| Posted: 14 Jun 2022 07:16 AM PDT Is there a term, a phrase or an idiomatic expression to describe a young woman who, while pretty when seen from behind, is ugly, if not repulsive, when seen from the front? After some searches I focused my attention on "double-faced woman", but I'm unsure whether this is the best expression one can think of. |
| What adjective (other than "last") means "most-recent previous"? Posted: 14 Jun 2022 03:32 AM PDT If I were to say "the previous item" or "the prior item" or "the preceding item", I could be referring either to the most-recent previous item, or to any other item logically coming before the current one. How can I refer to not just any prior item, but the last or most-recent item, without using the word "last"? I'm especially interested in a word that would be a suitable replacement for the "most-recent previous" in technical writing. By way of clarification... I'm looking for alternative terminology that de-emphasizes the concept of time and emphasizes the concept of logical ordering. The word "recent" seems too attached to the concept of time. The phrase "most-recent previous" is, frankly, a mouthful --- especially if used repeatedly. The word "last" has the potential to be confused with the ultimate in an entire series, rather than merely the immediate predecessor of any specifically-referred to item the series. |
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