New answers tagged word-usage
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Nouns can be used attributatively. From that link:
In English grammar, an attributive noun is a noun that modifies
another noun and functions as an adjective. Also known as a noun
premodifier, a noun adjunct, and a converted adjective.
Task surface is the noun task being used in this way.
If you don't use task with another word like you would use ...
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"The news of president's death astonished the world"
This is a great example of the word having a negative meaning. As Andy said, the meaning is neutral. However, since the subject is negative, the adjective becomes negative.
Acknowledging Catija's point about the first example, something similar would certainly be negative. It is difficult to think of a ...
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The first sentence is correct.
Why did you go there puts the subject (you) of the sentence in the past and the verbs (go and do) describe the actions of the subject (you) which was already described to be in the past.
Techincally if your friend was being consistent their argument would have been Why did you went there and did that? Which is very incorrect....
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You should take care with the word "comprise". It has several senses, but some senses are proscribed. That means that some people think that these meanings are bad English.
It is correctly used to say
The whole comprises the parts.
The list of parts should be a complete list of all the parts that make something.
A football team comprises ten ...
1
If you are in the house, looking at the washing line, you are going to (the line to) bring the washing back into the house.
If you are at the line, you are going to take the washing from the line back to the house.
Here, the bring and take relate to the house, not to the person who is fetching / bringing / getting / taking in the washing.
The other ...
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The noun lingua is not used (Is it even in an English dictionary?). It's probably been made redundant in the formation of the English language from its ancestors. Tongue is always used as the noun, and can mean "language" as well, for example mother tongue (the language one learned from one's mother).
On the other hand, the adjectival form lingual is used, ...
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The simple explanation is that in anatomy, latin terms are used (for adjectives "dorsal"= of the back, "ventral"= of the belly/front, "jugular"=of the throat, "ischemic", "sciatic", "cranial", ... ; or for parts, like "retina", "vena cava", "atrium", "vestibula", "cranium", ... ). In English, you will find "lingua"/"lingual" almost exclusively used in an ...
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lingua isn't used on its own, but the latin root is part of a lot of words.
sublingual - below the tongue
linguist - someone who studies languages
bilingual - someone who speaks 2 languages
linguine (or linguini) - a delicious pasta, that somehow relates to tongues.
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I cannot think of any use of lingua however sublingual means under the tongue. Sub means under or below and lingual means tongue. The word tongue is not used for the anatomical structure alone. For instance, the tongue of the shoe.
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"Lingua" is not an English word. To my knowledge it is only found (in English) in the expression lingua franca which comes from Italian and refers to a "common language" between two or more groups of people. It is a loan word.
When referring to the anatomical thing, we always say "tongue" and never "lingua."
"Lingua" itself is Latin, and this root is the ...
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It isn't particularly idiomatic. People do sometimes say "he did a dance", but "do/did" is a bit odd because "dance" is itself a verb, although it can also be a noun when referring to a specific type of dance.
If you wanted to know if someone can dance in general, it would be more natural to ask:
Can you dance?
Or, if referring to a specific dance or ...
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The Wikipedia link you provided, says
Each day, the fast begins at dawn and ends at sunset.
It is completely natural to use "begin" and "end".
The meal eaten to end the fast is known as iftar. - Wikipedia (Fasting)
It is even more common to use the word "break". J.R., in the comments section, added the link to an Ngram which shows the uses of ...
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Your example is fine. It is perfectly good idiomatic English to use "the only" to list one or more of a larger set. So your sentence is correct although it may be better to change the preposition:
The only countries in South America that I know are Mexico, Brazil
and Argentina.
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This is totally normal usage - because 'countries' is (massively) plural, it is obvious to a native speaker that a short list still fits the definition of 'only a few'.
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The most common locution in the modern U.S. for the idea that you are talking about is
is introduced into the market
primarily because the market is being considered a process rather than a place.
Of course the locutions
goes to the market
and
goes into the market
are used when what is being contemplated is some building used for selling ...
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Credit is given when you use (with lawful permission) someone else’s work and ideas to develop your own.
Ideas and contributions can also be ‘acknowledged’ where there is insufficient material or copyright issues to warrant being ‘credited’
If the material is a straight lift, (rather than your interpretation of their work), the protocol is to ‘Reference’ ...
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There are several uses for the slang term ‘crack’ in the UK vernacular and it really depends on the context.
‘Let’s crack on with...’ is accepted to mean ‘Make progress’ either by starting or resuming the activity that follows the phrase... eg - let’s crack on with the report means let’s get the report started, or let’s get moving on the report.
‘He’s onto ...
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Can the word "maximum" be used as a plural noun as in the given sentence?
Yes, it can be used in its plural form.
In cricket, the maximum a batsman can score from a single ball is six points (i.e., six runs). When a batsman does that, it is called "hitting a six". Since there are 6 balls in an over, the batsman can hit 6 sixes (this gives him a total of ...
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Yes, 'make' here is normal and idiomatic.
make verb (CAUSE TO BE) [ T ]
to cause to be, to become, or to
appear as:
The president has made Henry Paulson his Secretary of the Treasury.
Make (Cambridge Dictionary)
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There are a couple of issues.
First "can 'a maximum' mean 'a six-run hit' in cricket jargon?" The answer to that is 'yes, in context'. If you said:
I hit a maximum on the last ball of the over.
(and it was clear that you were talking about cricket, to someone who understands the rules of the game) then it would be understood. So "a maximum" in a ...
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"In" implies very much that you are pointing out the thing and then the error(s) within in.
"With" implies coexistence and is more general, and could be replaced with phrases like "existing alongside".
10 common mistakes with prepositions.
This really implies something like:
10 common mistakes made by people when they are learning to use prepositions....
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"Match" is acceptable in this context although the far more common verb in the U.S. is "check." Your sentence, however, is not highly idiomatic in other respects.
After solving the problems, match your answers with those in the answer key to ensure that your answers are correct
is pefectly acceptable, but much less frequent than would be
After solving ...
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As a native BrE speaker I wouldn't use either of those. I would say:
'This is the best song I've ever heard'
I'm not sure if the two examples you have are grammatically incorrect, as such (I could see those sentences constructed like that - or at least understand what was meant). They just don't seem very idiomatic to me as a BrE speaker.
'This is the ...
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Analytica is the Latin word from which we get the word analytics.
For example, Analytica Posteriora is the Latin title of a work by Aristotle.
Many people think Latin makes things sound more sophisticated, and in this case the word is close enough to the English one that it’s clear enough that they’re related.
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Native English speaker answer. I have been a University lecturer (in Science, not in English, but with many non-English undergraduate and postgraduate students). A really common mistake that non-native speakers make is the original poster's Case 1.
Sentences of the form "It allows to do something" should not be used. Here's a typical sample that I found in ...
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The idiom in English is: to stuff one's face.
I'm going to Chick-fil-A to stuff my face.
not: to get stuffed, which really would be comical, as it would mean to get screwed or to be stuffed as one stuffs a turkey.
I don't usually cite the Free Dictionary but it works fine here for a "reference":
slang To eat a lot of food, especially quickly and in a ...
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I'm a native English speaker from Canada, so my English is pretty close to American.
You could use it the way you want, but you would have to say "to get stuffed". You will be understood the way you intend and it won't sound weird.
You do have to be careful how you use it. It's true that we don't often use the phrase "get stuffed" the way the British do, ...
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I don't think you'll find a single word.
"Witty" could work for "smart" and "funny". But don't think you could combine "awesome" in there.
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No.
I've never been with someone this tall than me before is not grammatical. The segment this tall than me makes no sense. I think you mean this much taller than me, as in:
I've never been with someone this much taller than me before.
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I think none of the (current) other answers are correct. 'Got' is not always past tense.
From what I understand, you ask for either the phrase 'Got it?' or 'Get it?' as a confirmation after saying/explaining something. In which case they are not part of a larger sentence and 'got' is not past tense.
"I need that report today. Got it?" or "I need that ...
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In English "close" and "far" almost always refer to distance.
The closest common words that express that idea for time are "soon", and "later" or "eventually"
If you look up close/far in a thesaurus you'll find plenty of other options for distance, and if you look up soon/later/eventually you'll find other options for time.
Sometimes people might talk ...
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"Let's go ahead" sounds OK, although usually wouldn't be used to imply passing people - "let's go ahead" just implies the general direction (it's often used when we're stationary, and then decide to "go ahead").
"Let's get ahead" you'd be unlikely to hear without clarification.
In this context you'd most likely hear:
Let's get past these two.
Let's ...
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Get/got = to understand.
[Do you] get it? Meaning: Do you understand what I am saying or explaining to you.
Often expressed as: Get it? Present tense.
Now, for this meaning at a present time, we also use: [Have you] got it? Like this: "Got it?"
So both can be used to mean: understand something at a time in the present.
So, the reason either one can be ...
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You have to get the difference:
Got - Past Tense.
Get - Present Tense.
For example: When you say "I got it", that means that you already got that thing - whereas "I get it" means that you get that thing now.
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It sounds fine, although it's also acceptable, and perhaps a bit more idiomatic, to say:
Let me start from question five in this quiz.
Given the context (speaking to an authority figure), you may say something like:
I've done the first four questions, so can I start from question five?
It would be more correct to say "may" instead of "can", but this ...
5
"Got" is the past tense of the verb, and "get" is the present tense. Except that the past tense is irregular (it is "got," not "getted") this works the same as for any other verb.
Note that "to get it" has two different meanings: the literal meaning of "to have some physical object" and also the meaning of "to understand something".
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Only difference between them is the time.
Get is the present tense form while Got is the past tense form.
-I get the tools. (I am moving to get it) Present
-I got the tools. (I already got it) Past
Also in the meaning of understanding something:
-I get what you mean by that. (I understand it right now) Present
-I got what you mean by that. (...
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“Got it?” could be a question about whether a physical object has been obtained.
Ex.: I hand the coat to you. You’ve got it.
It could also be asking whether you understand something that has already happened.
Ex.: You explained to me how to get to the library. I got it.
“Get it?” might be a question about understanding something happening now.
Ex.: I ...
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I prefer the "is before" sentence for a conversational context.
As far as how I would actually say this, and what I would consider idiomatic:
(I think) You've gone past it - Nat Geo is 550.
Keep going - Nat Geo is 550.
The bracketed "I think" is optional; I feel it would be used in a context where you'd want to be a bit more polite, e.g., if you ...
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I would use "is" instead of "comes". Using "comes" is okay, but it presupposes that someone is flipping through the channels from lowest to highest. That is often not the case, since you could also change the channel by typing in the number or by going from higher to lower. That being said, either is really fine, and what I've said about "comes" here is ...
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They are all pretty common idioms, some more so than others. I won't get into their meanings since you can look them up in dictionaries.
You should know that many idioms can be regional. By that I mean some idioms are common in the UK but not in the US, and vice versa. Even in just the US, different regions may have different idioms. Even native speakers ...
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According to the Cambridge Dictionary, quash means
to say officially that something, especially an earlier official decision, is no longer to be accepted
quash is therefore only used if the defendant is acquitted.
If the sentence is reduced in some way, the correct word to use is commute.
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"Having passed" means that the event happened in the past and is complete. "Passing" means the event is happening now, as in "I am passing the exam.", or recently happened as in your example. In practice, the two forms are often used interchangeably.
A case where it matters would be "Having passed my exam, I was awarded a certificate." In this case using ...
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To be defeated, there must be an adversary. Whereas something can succeed or fail on its merits (or lack of them).
If I try to shoot a basketball through the hoop but miss, alone on the court, that is failure. If I miss because my brother blocked me, that is defeat. He has defeated my attempt.
If you don't have a designated adversary but still want to use (...
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Your second option is common and natural.
Vaccination is a noun, so the first is very awkward. Other options to consider:
I got my dog vaccinated.
I took my dog to the vet for a vaccination.
The vet vaccinated my dog.
My dog was vaccinated.
My dog has been vaccinated.
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In the structure X spend(s) Y Z, where Y is a duration; Z can be an action or a thing. If it's a thing, a preposition is needed.
I spent 2 hours washing my clothes.
I spent 2 hours at the laundromat.
Actions can be considered things if expressed as a gerund or gerund phrase. A context where you'd want to "thing-ify" an action is if you're ...
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Also, in the story, there are a series of recursive cats in corresponding hats. A cat's hat in that context is actually the hat belonging to their host cat, which they are in fact positioned entirely within.
Not for nothing.
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The Cat: Because it's a specific cat having a specific identity and/or personality. If it were about any cat, it would be A Cat.
In: Because he's wearing it. If you are wearing an article of clothing you are dressed in that article of clothing. On a cat means the hat is sitting on top of a cat but the cat isn't wearing it. The cat just happens to be ...
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You express support for a cause. You can express that support to a particular person or group.
Alice expressed to Bob her support for the new policy.
Alice expressed her support for the new policy. (To whom Alice expressed her support is not stated.)
Alice expressed her support to Bob. (What Alice supports is not stated.)
Alice supports the ...
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The other answers do a fine job explaining how the you can use in to describe someone wearing clothing. However, there is another difference between the two alternatives you give that I would like to highlight.
The phrase "cat in the hat" focuses on the cat (who is wearing a hat), while the phrase "the hat on the cat" focuses on the hat (which is being worn ...
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