Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

---

• "won't rely on" or "won't be relying on"
• How to rephrase this sentence and make them more professional [closed]
• Do you know someone who[m] I might be able to help? [duplicate]
• Usage of helping verb and modal together [closed]
• Verb agreement while using singular they [duplicate]
• Do animals have a soul? Do animals have souls? [closed]
• Using “including” vs. “and include”
• A few sentence stress questions [closed]
• Is this infinitive a noun or an adverb?
• What is the proper number formatting for a legal document from the Supreme court?
• Can "due" meaning "owed" be used without "to" in AmE? e.g. "the recognition which was due her"
• Am I interpreting the sentence correctly?
• Whether it's correct to say he is easy to get angry?
• It is an important thing to do or to be done? [duplicate]
• Is the sentence "Queueing is so thoughtful of you." grammatically correct?
• How difficult was that decision to make vs How difficult was it to make that decision? [closed]
• To explain or to be explained
• Care about and Care for
• Was the blue screen of death ever just a blue screen?
• A request for a word similar to 'stumble in speech'
• What is the superlative of long-term?
• Opposite of "retrofit"
• fun to make and fun to eat
• What is the origin of "like a bat out of hell"?
• Is it correct to use the conjunction “or” more than twice in one sentence?
• will be possible to be used
• What does "therf werre eyght bokes" mean?
• Is this the correct usage of the word "fraught"?
• Is "you don't understanding why" just a mistake or yet another not widely known idiom?
• Can or should "ask" ever be used as a noun?

"won't rely on" or "won't be relying on" Posted: 26 Jun 2022 05:13 AM PDT You won't rely on the odds of getting lucky. or You won't be relying on your odds of getting lucky. They both seem to work, but I'm not sure, maybe both of them are wrong.

How to rephrase this sentence and make them more professional [closed] Posted: 26 Jun 2022 01:56 AM PDT How do I make this sounds better? "We believe eating good food is a way to practise self love. Good food by means is having quality food that not only providing the pleasure of eating, but also the health benefit of it. Here we are offering love, care and the finest dried food for you to enjoy a moment of self love."

Do you know someone who[m] I might be able to help? [duplicate] Posted: 26 Jun 2022 01:49 AM PDT Which is correct, and why? Thank you

Usage of helping verb and modal together [closed] Posted: 26 Jun 2022 12:22 AM PDT The benefits we have had and can have from space explorations depend upon various factors. Is there something wrong with the aforementioned sentence? If yes, then please advise the correct syntax.

Verb agreement while using singular they [duplicate] Posted: 25 Jun 2022 11:12 PM PDT I am on a pseudonymous online platform and wish to post the following comment referring to another user: He provides no proof to back up their arguments and mocks anyone who tries to have a civil discussion. But since I do not know the person's gender, I would like to use "they". They provide no proof to back up their arguments and mock anyone who tries to have a civil discussion. But since I am referring to a single person, would it be correct to drop the "s"?

Do animals have a soul? Do animals have souls? [closed] Posted: 25 Jun 2022 10:33 PM PDT Are the questions both correct? Is it okay for the first noun to be in plural and the second noun in singular?

Using “including” vs. “and include” Posted: 25 Jun 2022 08:38 PM PDT I came across this sentence: "The benefits of exercise are vast, including improved cardiovascular health…" I can tell something's off here — I believe it should be either "The benefits of exercise are vast, and include…" or "Exercise has vast benefits, including…" — but I'm at a loss to explain why. Can someone tell me what exactly is wrong with the first formulation? Thank you!

A few sentence stress questions [closed] Posted: 26 Jun 2022 02:12 AM PDT Are sentence stress and word stress analyzed separately? Or are they analyzed all at once? For example "I need to sell my car". Do I find the sentence stress and word stresses separately or do I analyze them all at once? If I analyze them all at once, does one affect the other? Can sentence stress turn a secondary stressed syllable into a primary stressed syllable? Or can it turn a non-stressed syllable into a primary or secondary stressed syllable through sentence stress?

Is this infinitive a noun or an adverb? Posted: 25 Jun 2022 11:57 PM PDT In the following sentences... Watch me whip. You make me feel special. The word "whip" and the phrase "feel special" are infinitives without "to." However, I'm not exactly sure if "(to) whip" or "(to) feel special" are direct objects (nouns) or adverbs. They seem to follow the same structure as this sentence: She gave me the keys. Where... She = subject (noun) Gave = verb Me = indirect object (pronoun) the keys = direct object BUT it also seems to me that the infinitive "whip" modifies "watch" and the infinitive "feel special" modifies "make." Help?

What is the proper number formatting for a legal document from the Supreme court? Posted: 25 Jun 2022 03:45 PM PDT Do federally-issued legal documents in the USA require numbers spelt out, or in number form? I took a look at this site concerning Citation, Grammar and Style Guides from Loyola School of Law, but it was a little difficult to wade through. I am reading the recent Dobb's ruling from the Supreme Court re Roe v Wade, and while some spelt-out numbers are edited to provide numeral formatting, other portions retain the spelt out parts. It does not seem very consistent. Is this by a style guide, or is this legalese? And why the inconsistency? It all seems a little rushed, and ill-considered...compare the yellow circles with the green ones. From CNN "Track changes between the abortion decision and the leaked draft" It began by noting that, at the time of enactment, only six countries besides the United States permit [ed] nontherapeutic or elective abortion-on-demand after the twentieth week of gestation [...] The legislature then found that at five 5 or six 6 gestational age an unborn human being's heart begins beating; at eight 8 weeks the unborn human being begins to move about in the womb; at nine 9 weeks all basic physiological functions are present; at ten 10 Verified Image below So is there some special style guide that we mere mortals do not have access to, or is it just arbitrary and possibly due to clerks not having their dockets in a row?

Can "due" meaning "owed" be used without "to" in AmE? e.g. "the recognition which was due her" Posted: 25 Jun 2022 09:15 PM PDT Encountered the following in a text I'm proofreading. ...tries to salvage the dignity due the situation My instinct is to correct this to ...tries to salvage the dignity due to the situation but the writer is American while I am (mostly) British, and it is possible this may be correct in American English. Googling unfortunately brings up many examples of "due to" meaning "because", which is not what I'm after. To take another example: finally got the recognition she was due Rephrasing... finally got the recognition due to her / finally got the recognition due her The second, "due her" sounds weird to me, but is, according to the Cambridge definition above, correct. EDIT in response to comments saying that "due to" only means "because": https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/due (scroll down to the adjective definition) owed as a debt or as a right: The rent is due (= should be paid) at the end of the month. £50 is due to me (US due me) from the people I worked for last month. Our thanks are due to everyone. Some more examples of "due to", to put those arguments to rest: Arguably the handling of those bones as tools of research is also incompatible with the respect due to humanity British Diplomacy in Northern India In the morning we had talked of old families, and the respect due to them. The Life of Samuel Johnson vol.II It stood on its neck/with a smile well-bred/And bowed three times to me!/It was none of your impudent/off-hand nods/But as humble as could be/For it clearly knew/The deference due/To a man of pedigree The Mikado My thanks are due to former colleagues... *'And you have accepted what was not due to you.' D'Artagnan's eyes flashed. * The Vicomte de Bragelonne The first line gives the 'agreed fee', which is the total amount due to you, not including any VAT. How to Be an Illustrator What I want to know is - in such cases, in American English, may we use "due" without the "to"?

Am I interpreting the sentence correctly? Posted: 26 Jun 2022 04:07 AM PDT I'm having trouble understanding the bolded sentence in the following paragraph. The use of enslaved laborers was affirmed — and its continual growth was promoted — through the creation of a Virginia law in 1662 that decreed that the status of the child followed the status of the mother, which meant that enslaved women gave birth to generations of children of African descent who were now seen as commodities. This natural increase allowed the colonies — and then the United States — to become a slave nation. The law also secured wealth for European colonists and generations of their descendants, even as free black people could be legally prohibited from bequeathing their wealth to their children. Source: New York Times (paywalled) Here's what I think the sentence means: The law also secured wealth for European colonists and generations of their descendants because free black people could be legally prohibited from bequeathing their wealth to their children. However, I couldn't find any source that stated that "even as" meant "because," although "as" can mean "because". According to the Oxford Languages Dictionary, "even as" means "at the very same time as." The law also secured wealth for European colonists and generations of their descendants, at the same time as free black people could be legally prohibited from bequeathing their wealth to their children. This latter sentence doesn't seem as logical to me as the former interpretation. Any help is appreciated.

Whether it's correct to say he is easy to get angry? Posted: 25 Jun 2022 03:06 PM PDT My confusion is that if there are any grammatical rules or limitation on the logical subject of infinitive, adjective-wise maybe? I know these work: He is happy to do something something is easy to do How about? he is easy to get angry I know most people would say he gets angry easily. I just wonder if there are fixed logic behind as in sentences of the first kind being used to describe how a person feel about doing something and the second for judgment of something .

It is an important thing to do or to be done? [duplicate] Posted: 25 Jun 2022 03:09 PM PDT Which one is correct? Can i use them interchangably and is there a common rule for such constructions? Thanks in advance.

Is the sentence "Queueing is so thoughtful of you." grammatically correct? Posted: 25 Jun 2022 03:09 PM PDT In the following two blog posts ("Illiteracy in Singapore - the Land Transport Authority" and "LTA's illiterate poster") the author accused the poster depicted below of being evidence of illiteracy in Singapore, which I take to mean that there's something grammatically incorrect with it. How so? The second post actually includes a bit of a response to this question, but his explanation is quite confusing. The blog poster said it had nothing to do with the singular verb, or "the issue of concord" in his words. Anyone knowledgeable enough about grammar to decode this chunk of text? What makes the sentence ungrammatical is its utter meaninglessness. Since the copulative verb links the subject and the subject complement, the introduction of an unrelated clause in lieu of the subject complement renders the sentence an absurdity that has no meaning. One cannot ignore the grammatical function of the copula, The addition of a prop or dummy subject is of course one possibility that is available to a writer in a sea of possible variations.

How difficult was that decision to make vs How difficult was it to make that decision? [closed] Posted: 25 Jun 2022 03:08 PM PDT How difficult was that decision to make? How difficult was it to make that decision? How difficult was that decision to be made? Are there any differences among the above-mentioned sentences?

To explain or to be explained Posted: 25 Jun 2022 03:06 PM PDT I have searched lots of websites to understand which one is correct in this sentence: It is too hard to (be) explain(ed). Some people say that after some adjectives called tough adjectives you can't use the passive form of verbs. I have heard from some native speakers that It is too hard to be explained is very strange to their ears. So I search on the Internet and I found that at least 14 million people think that to be explained is correct and they actually have used it. I am sure that I am missing something here. Maybe they are used in different situations. But I couldn't find any real difference between them. Any help is more than welcomed. P.S: To further complicate the situation for a word like pass, when I searched it on the Internet, you can't really say "Exam was too difficult to be passed".

Care about and Care for Posted: 25 Jun 2022 03:42 PM PDT What's the difference between "care for something" and "care about something"? English is not my first language so I'm looking for clarity. May use them interchangeably?

Was the blue screen of death ever just a blue screen? Posted: 26 Jun 2022 02:45 AM PDT Etymologically speaking, at least according to Wikipedia, the term Blue Screen of Death: originated during OS/2 pre-release development activities at Lattice Inc, the makers of an early Windows and OS/2 C compiler. During porting of Lattice's other tools, developers encountered the stop screen when null pointers were dereferenced either in application code or when unexpectedly passed into system API calls. During reviews of progress and feedback to IBM Austin, the developers described the stop screen as the Blue Screen of Death to denote the screen and the finality of the experience. However, the Wikipedia article cited lacks a source, so I've been wondering about the term itself. Did the term exist as just "blue screen" before "of death" was appended to it? Or did it start out as a "blue screen"? Was there a word that Windows developers called it before the "Blue Screen of Death" rose to popularity?

A request for a word similar to 'stumble in speech' Posted: 26 Jun 2022 05:21 AM PDT I am looking for a rather formal verb(phrase) to mean "involuntarily inserting a word from one's mother tongue in a speech made in one's foreign language because the person in question is in a very nerve-wrecking situation such as speaking in court" Example: A person whose second language is English, and first language is French says the following: "I don't mean to blow things out proportion, but I think that what you said is, uh, uh, 'injuste', uh, I mean, unfair!" (Heart pounding hard) Note the involuntary insertion of the French word injuste into the English speech is involuntary because the person was too nervous or self-conscious. The insertion does not come from a lack a competency or command of lexicon, only nervousness. I thought of stumble but I don't think it serves the purpose well.

What is the superlative of long-term? Posted: 26 Jun 2022 05:05 AM PDT I was writing my history essay earlier today on the effects of the First World War and in my conclusion I was comparing the four causes I had discussed in the essay. I then was half-way through my sentence when I struggled to think of the superlative of long-term. Both the longest-term cause was... and the most long-term cause was... struck me as viable options, however neither sounded correct to me at the time. I also thought ofgreatest and most chronic afterwards, although by then it was too late. Greatest also perhaps connotes importance, which is undesirable in the context. In the end I rephrased my sentence to escape the predicament and although I cannot remember what I wrote instead I believe it was less effective than a sentence with the superlative of long-term.

Opposite of "retrofit" Posted: 26 Jun 2022 04:29 AM PDT To retrofit is to take a new item and make it work with something old. What is the word to take an old item and make it work with something new? For example, someone could retrofit a new character by modding an old game. Retrofitting an old character into a new game doesn't sound correct, since you're doing the exact opposite of retrofitting. What word am I looking for?

fun to make and fun to eat Posted: 25 Jun 2022 03:10 PM PDT "These cookies are fun to make and especially fun to eat." (source) Semantically, these cookies is both to-infinitves' object; and to-infinitves seems to be the semantic subject of both funs, as is in the sentence of "It's fun to take a walk". Is this right understanding? Or do the to-infinitves become semantic object of both funs?

What is the origin of "like a bat out of hell"? Posted: 25 Jun 2022 09:48 PM PDT As far as I know, this expression means to appear suddenly and in a scary way. But what is its origin? I heard that it comes from Meat Loaf's song but I'd like to confirm it with reliable sources, if possible.

Is it correct to use the conjunction “or” more than twice in one sentence? Posted: 25 Jun 2022 11:50 PM PDT For an example is it correct to say: You may use X or Y or Z or even something else. And what is proper punctuation for such example in case it is valid.

will be possible to be used Posted: 25 Jun 2022 03:10 PM PDT Is it (1) correct, (2) natural/wise to say the following in english: "[X] will be possible to be used here as [Y, ie. some function/role]"? Are there any alternatives, and if there are, are they a superior or (else) a roughly equialent thing to say? If it's not correct, could you point out what's wrong with it? What I want to express is that in the future "you will be able to use X as Y here". Ie. you will be able to use the ladder (not yet built) as an aid to climb up to the roof. Of course I could use this form, but I'm trying to express it with the former to see if it is possible/OK. In particular I'm trying to avoid putting "you" or "one" in the sentence, but only if it's OK to do so.

What does "therf werre eyght bokes" mean? Posted: 26 Jun 2022 01:02 AM PDT I've been told that the following phrase is valid English, although Google Translate marks each of the words as wrong. Therf werre eyght bokes. What does this phrase mean in common English?

Is this the correct usage of the word "fraught"? Posted: 25 Jun 2022 10:36 PM PDT MySpace is fraught with users sending friend requests to people they don't even know.

Is "you don't understanding why" just a mistake or yet another not widely known idiom? Posted: 26 Jun 2022 02:42 AM PDT From Raymond Chen's blog: Good advice comes with a rationale so you can tell when it becomes bad advice. If you don't understanding why something should be done, then you've fallen into the trap of cargo cult programming, and you'll keep doing it even when it's no longer necessary or even becomes deleterious. The person who wrote this is a very smart fellow which usually writes well, so this makes me wonder if it's an idiom I don't know instead of a simple (and ugly) mistake.

Can or should "ask" ever be used as a noun? Posted: 26 Jun 2022 02:44 AM PDT "The ask is that you provide me with..." I started hearing "ask" being used as a noun a few years ago. Is this a recent trend? Is it an East Coast thing, unique to North America, or just unique to the in-house vocabulary of telecommunications companies?

You are subscribed to email updates from Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States