112
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Your English is better than my <<language>>
It’s both a compliment about your skill with English and a self-deprecating joke about our own lack of skill (likely zero) with yours, in hopes this will put you at ease.
The subtext here is that we ...
- 8,091
95
votes
How should I reply when I answer some question on Stack Exchange sites, people thank me and say it helped?
I commend your desire to be polite!
However, since your question is specifically about “stackoverflow sites”, I recommend you do not respond to “thank you” comments or post your own “thank you”-type ...
- 841
85
votes
Accepted
Do Americans say “My car's tire has a slow puncture” in everyday English?
I live in the U.S., and I would say "My tire has a slow leak."
It is the leakage of air that is slow. The leakage might be caused by a puncture or by something else. If people in the UK say &...
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63
votes
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Is it correct to say "I am scoring my girlfriend/my boss" when your girlfriend/boss acknowledge good things you are doing for them?
No, you cannot say "I am scoring somebody" to mean that you are building favor with them.
The verb "score" with a direct object other than "point" or "goal" can ...
- 11k
61
votes
Accepted
"Correct me if I'm wrong"
It's used both ways – it can indeed be an expression of confidence, but it can also be a genuine request for clarification. And even in the former case, you can usually assume that the speaker is in ...
- 2,892
61
votes
Accepted
Can I say "Oh boy" to a girl?
The expression is not even that dated, e.g. here's a movie from 2020 with exact this title, and there's another one from 2012.
In neither case is the title supposed to be a sentence addressed to a ...
- 1,215
58
votes
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Can you please explain this joke: "I'm going bananas is what I tell my bananas before I leave the house"?
The first one is a play on the phrase 'I'm going bananas' to mean going a bit crazy. (Sounds a bit like a Tim Vine one-liner this). It is meant to make you think they are going crazy when you read the ...
- 2,506
53
votes
Is it correct to say "I fixed the towel with a peg"?
Two issues:
When "fixed" is used as a verb, the average native speaker is likely to interpret it as "repaired" or "mended" if that is even remotely plausible. Using it ...
- 1,969
53
votes
What phrase would American English speakers use in place of "Tom, Dick and Harry"?
As Michael Siefert says, this is both used and immediately recognizable in American English, but it would be generational, with the oldest speakers finding it natural, many or most middle-aged ...
- 1,862
51
votes
Accepted
Does "You little liar" mean "You tell small and not so serious lies" or just "You tell lies in general"?
The word "little" here is native colloquial English, in the UK at least, but this specific example is likely to be of, to, and between children, or in a child-like manner.
The little here, ...
- 1,017
50
votes
The meaning of "seven’s sixteen and a half"
The character is doing math and saying it out loud. Here, "and seven's" means "plus seven is", as in, nine and a half hours plus seven hours makes sixteen and a half hours before ...
- 48.9k
49
votes
Accepted
What does 'do steak and chips' mean?
Steak and chips (also known by the French name steak frites) is a classic meal across much of Western Europe. It's not a binomial phrase with any other meaning, as far as I'm aware.
It is possible ...
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votes
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Is it correct to say to a child "let go of the chair" when he is holding on to the chair?
The distinction you describe does not exist. "Let go of" just means to stop holding something, regardless of what's moving away or if anything is moving at all.
"Let go of the chair&...
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46
votes
Do the phrases "I laughed the hell out of myself" and "I laughed the hell out of you" make sense?
In the sentence "you scared the hell out of me", the phrase "the hell out of" acts as an intensifier - it can roughly be paraphrased as "you scared me a lot".
Importantly,...
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45
votes
Is 'no more' used to mean 'dead' in English?
Not quite.
It is true that "He is no more" can mean "He is dead", but that doesn't mean that "no more" is a way of saying "dead".
In "He is dead", the word "dead" modifies "he", and the verb "is" is ...
45
votes
He is honest (9 out of 10). How to construct a phrase in which a person's honesty is scored on a scale?
I think a more likely construction would be:
I’d give him nine out of ten for honesty.
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Can you please explain this joke: "I'm going bananas is what I tell my bananas before I leave the house"?
"I'm going bananas" is what I tell my bananas before I leave the house.
is a "garden-path sentence" . The Wikipedia article defines this as:
a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a ...
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44
votes
Is it correct to say "his wife ghosted him although they lived in the same house"?
"Ghosting" is a fairly new word in Engilsh, and the full range of its use hasn't been explored, but my guess is that when it settles, it will not be possible to ghost someone who knows where ...
- 48.9k
43
votes
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Is it really OK to use "because of"?
Actually, 'of' can be correct, in standard grammar, after because. It depends on what comes after that.
If the next part is a complete and potentially free-standing clause (say, a verb phrase), then ...
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43
votes
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Do we say "it is on the news" in both American and British English?
The explanation you got is technically correct, but misses the main difference between the two.
If something is "on the news", it means news shows (usually TV or radio) have mentioned or ...
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42
votes
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How should I reply when I answer some question on Stack Exchange sites, people thank me and say it helped?
All your examples are fine. I would offer the following advice to make it sound more natural to a native, however, the most important of which can be summarised by saying keep it short.
Shorten "You ...
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42
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What is it called when at university there are two subjects being held at the same time?
In my experience the most common idiom is
a scheduling conflict
This can apply anywhere, not just to academics. For example, in a work email:
Hi Jim, can we move our meeting to 3pm? I have a ...
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42
votes
Is it correct to say "I am scoring my girlfriend/my boss" when your girlfriend/boss acknowledge good things you are doing for them?
You have simply left out two words:
"By arriving early, I am scoring my boss”
Totally wrong.
"By arriving early, I am scoring points with my boss”
Completely correct and normal.
It's ...
- 1,250
42
votes
Accepted
What sense does "I approve of this message" make?
To approve of [something] is a prepositional verb which means: to speak or think favourably of something, or to have a good opinion of something.
To approve [something] means: to officially agree to/...
- 3,672
41
votes
Accepted
"One of THOSE days" vs "one of THESE days"
One of these days
One of those days
These are idioms.
The former means sometime in the near future. So you can say "we really must visit them one of these days".
The latter (one of those days) ...
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41
votes
When talking about computing, are "not enabled" and "disabled" same?
From a computing perspective, I would not perceive a negative connotation to the word “disabled”, as it is a very common term. Part of the negative connotation it has in referring to people is ...
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41
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Is it rude to say "Speak of the devil- Here is Grandma now!"?
This phrase comes from a very old superstition that naming the Devil would cause him to appear — see The Phrase Finder.
Over the centuries it has developed into a light-hearted saying that doesn't ...
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40
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“in US English” vs "in the US English"
No. When "US", "UK", "UN", "UAE" etc are used as nouns, they have the definite article "the" preceding them.
We are going to the US next week.
The UK held a referendum on EU membership.
...
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40
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What is the logic behind "I am X years old"?
Here's a much closer model:
How tall is it? It's 50 metres tall.
How long is it? It's two miles long.
How long is it? It's 40 minutes long.
How old are you? I'm 31 years old.
This doesn't work ...
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39
votes
Accepted
What is the correct word for "turn off lamp" for a non-electric lamp?
If the lamp is lit by actual fire, I'd probably say:
Put out the lamp.
This is like how you "put out" a barbeque or a camping fire.
Note that, at least where I am, "lamp" and "light" are now ...
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