11
Strictly speaking, a rite of passage is a ceremony marking a person's transition into a new phase of life (a tribal initiation, confirmation or bar mitzvah, university graduation). Here, it's being used more loosely to mean 'something that people in that situation feel they have to do when they grow up'.
10
It means that human beings should not try to study God, because God is beyond human understanding. To presume is to exceed limits undesirably. The first definition for presume on the Merriam-Webster page is:
to undertake without leave or clear justification : DARE
"Scan" means survey or examine. Pope says it is an unjustified act of daring to try ...
8
Normally in modern English, non-auxiliary verbs can't be directly negated, so we need the dummy verb "do". Also, the object of a verb follows the verb. Here, the verb "presume" is being directly negated, and "God" is placed before "scan", despite being the object of the verb. So the standard form of this would be "...
6
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man.
You can't find out about man by studying (scanning) God. That is beyond understanding. Know yourself by studying yourself.
Merriam-Webster "scan"
1 to investigate thoroughly by checking point by point and often repeatedly
5
Building on the answers of verbose and Acccumulation,
“verb not” was a way of expressing a negative imperative
(equivalent to “don’t verb”).
Some examples I was able to find:
“Seek not out things that are too hard for thee,
neither search the things that are above thy strength.” — Ecclesiasticus 3:21
“seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from ...
4
It means to submit.
I just don’t see Americans submitting to this election fraud. Do you?
The origin of the phrase is from the way dogs indicate submission by rolling on their backs.
Note that, nowadays, there is some debate amongst animal psychologists about this gesture, however, traditionally, it has been understood to indicate submission.
3
Obviously a mistake. How can the 'world' be a 'global' leader? 'Global' means the whole world, and the world can't lead the world.
This headline shows Biden is talking about the US leading the world on climate change:
Joe Biden Says the U.S. Will Lead on Climate.
2
You have two verbs in parallel in this verb phrase: expose and prosecute. I think there is something to your misgivings about this verb phrase, although in my opinion only one of the verbs has some semantic issues.
"Expose" has two relevant meanings:
to make public, e.g. expose a crime ring
to reveal the true nature of, to show a hidden bad ...
2
The word "proper" is used to qualify the meaning of the noun as being specific to it and not general. For example:
"The growth of the city proper has far exceeded the estimates of the
planners."
This limits the scope of what has grown to just the city itself (i.e. proper) vs. any surrounding areas. If you leave "proper" out:
...
1
If we take the original
United States support for regime change and the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi in Lybia on the pretext of preventing threatened atrocities reeked of hypocricy when stacked against the prolonged US inaction ...
We could rewite it as
United States support for regime change and the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi in Lybia was based ...
1
Yes, your understanding is correct. "The Johnsons" means the Johnson family. And "You've become honorary Bidens" means "You've become honorary members of the Biden family" as you suggest.
1
That definition is perhaps a little too narrow. "Shtick" was used to describe the particular way that an comedian got laughs. Charlie Chaplin's shtick was his funny walk with a cane. And more generally it means the act that people do to get results.
Bannon's shtick is, in this sense, the populist and anti-immigration rhetoric that he used.
It ...
1
It extents the "wave" metaphor. When a wave goes past, the water rises and then falls. The top of the wave is called "the crest of the wave". When the water rises to its highest point, we say the "the wave is cresting".
So Brexit and Trumps election in 2016 were the crest of a wave of popularism.
1
The text is badly written. What it seems to be saying is:
Dormitory housing is the greatest risk factor for infection. However, dormitory housing reduced the risk of hospitalization. We suspect but cannot prove that the reason for this counter-intuitive result is that inmates with more severe cases were identified and placed in cells before we began our ...
1
The split decision amounted to a reassertion of centrism.
"Centrism" is midway between the political right and left, or between conservatism and liberalism. It means that extremism on either side has been rejected by the election. A "split decision" means that the election wasn't very strongly in favor of either side.
Merriam-Webster &...
1
Your interpretation isn't quite right.
What happened is that the scientists powered up 192 laser beams, and focused their energy to heat up a pellet of material.
Those focused laser beams delivered a large amount of energy into the pellet in a very short time, that is, in a "pulse". That's all that is being described.
As to the truck, the writer ...
1
Yes. "The developing storm, were it to become a cyclone on Tuesday, will be called NIVAR" means the same as " If the developing storm becomes a cyclone on Tuesday, it will be called NIVAR"
From Google definitions for 'were': Used to hypothesize about something that might happen.
Example: "if I were to lose"
1
To set something up is to prepare it for something. You can set a table up for dinner, or set your friend up with a date. If your friend is sleeping in the guest room, you could set it (the room) up. Or you could set them up with some blankets and a pillow. Or you could simply set them up; the listener knows roughly what you mean. This usage is close ...
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