Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Recent Questions - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

What is the origin of "Russians"?

Posted: 14 Jun 2022 12:42 PM PDT

Just to recap. In Old Nordic something along the lines of "Rods" meant "rowers", "men who row" → then it gave name to one Swedish coastal region, "Roslagen" → then the whole of Sweden, "Ruodsi" of some sort (all were endonyms, as far as I understand) → then the Varangians came along, they called themselves "Rus" or whatever → then Oleg conquered Kiev and named the whole region "Kievan Rus" (as opposed to the "original" Rus that was Sweden) → then the locals kind of accepted that rule and started to call themselves "Rus" too (but they had called themselves something before the Scandinavians invaded, didn't they; what that was I wonder) → and then, a while later, it was westernized into "Russians". Is it correct? Please rectify my account if necessary

'to do something' vs. 'to be doing something'

Posted: 14 Jun 2022 12:16 PM PDT

I have a question about the usages of to do something and to be doing something. What's the difference between them?

Example:

To do something:
"This is a really big moment for us and for the team, to finally announce this game and finally begin to allow the community to connect with us and to grow around the game with us," Bettner said.

To be doing something:
"This is a really big moment for us and for the team, to finally be announcing this game and finally begin to allow the community to connect with us and to grow around the game with us," Bettner said.

"Work for the man" as Black English

Posted: 14 Jun 2022 10:31 AM PDT

Is the phrase

"work for the man"

considered to be African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) (also Ebonics)?

Is this natural? "There's somebody wants to see you."

Posted: 14 Jun 2022 12:13 PM PDT

I have learned the following sentence is grammatically correct because it is possible to omit the nominative relative pronoun in a sentence like "there is ...". I'm not sure if it is natural or not in real, however. I would like to ask three questions about it.

There's somebody wants to see you.

Q1. Is the sentence natural? Why?

Q2. Does the inclusion of the relative "who" make a difference in nuance? If so, what is the difference?

Q3. Is it possible to use "there is" instead of the contraction form, "there's" in the sentence? Why?

How to quote material that ends sections with semicolons

Posted: 14 Jun 2022 12:07 PM PDT

I haven't found an answer to this specific scenario:

"This is an example of the quoted text from the report where this section ends with a semicolon;"

That is also the end of my sentence so I'm wondering if I need further punctuation such as:

"This is an example of the quoted text from the report where this section ends with a semicolon; ..."

or

"This is an example of the quoted text from the report where this section ends with a semicolon..."

It seems the report uses semicolons as final punctuation if the end of the sentence is the end of a section/chapter so I don't know which rules to apply.

Edited to add: I want to quote the end of a section of the report. The source material ends with a semicolon since this report ends sections/chapters with semicolons. I want to put the quote at the end of my sentence: Example sentence then "quoted material goes here;"

I'm new here so let me know if this is the wrong forum for this topic. Thanks for your help.

One word for "tedious" and "intellectually challenging"

Posted: 14 Jun 2022 10:02 AM PDT

I am looking for a single word that implies that something was tedious to do, but was also intellectually challenging. For example, filling out legal forms may be quite tedious, but perhaps it can be intellectually challenging to discern how the content of a form interacts with the law.

I can't seem to find a word that encompasses such a meaning. I considered "toilsome", but I don't think this implies the type of intellectual work that I am looking to describe. "Arduous" falls into the same boat...

A sample sentence would be, "I found the task to be quite Word_Here."

What's the difference between e.g. "room 5" and "number 5"?

Posted: 14 Jun 2022 08:40 AM PDT

Is it correct to use the word "number" meaning "hotel room"?

Word for sadness at something ending, but excited about new

Posted: 14 Jun 2022 12:13 PM PDT

Is there a word that describes the combination of feeling sad for an ending of something, but excited at new prospects. The closest I had was "bittersweet change"

Examples:

1) At the end of a holiday, I'm excited to go back home, but sad that the holiday is coming to an end.

2) I'm coming to end of my placement year job and sad that it's coming to an end, but excited that I'm going back to university.

I hope this satisfies the requirements of the QA here, if not, comment for me to correct.
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