New answers tagged word-usage
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I happen to have been working with several academic articles this week. To address your question, I opened the first two in my documents directory. I literally invested 15 seconds in this task. My point is that these articles were selected almost at random and with no attempt on my part to skew the outcome.
I noticed these sentences in their respective ...
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The problem with everybody and everyone is that they are grammatically singular but notionally plural. Once it was said that a plural pronoun to refer back everyone and everybody is not considered a good writing and it should be avoided in serious writing or literature. Even this suggestion was opposed by then contemporary grammarians. In fact there had been ...
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I think the second sentence you have posted doesn't use 'better still' right. It should be:
That act of kindness is a cherished memory in our hearts. Better still, it is growing as, many times, it has encouraged us to offer others something beyond their expectation.
You would use 'better still' just like 'even more satisfactory'. Such as:
"A Toyota ...
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As someone who has maintained these kinds of email addresses in a helpdesk job, we called these generic email addresses
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I would probably call this a "shared address". But I don't believe there is any term in English describing this sort of thing.
Note that there are plenty of function-based addresses that can still be routed to just one person, webmaster@domain or postmaster@domain for example. While large companies may have more than one person handle these ...
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I would call this an institutional email address.
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‘Discontinued’ is the most appropriate though you wouldn’t really need to use it because as the course Itself has been discontinued it stands to reason that it’s contents (the syllabus) have too. You would only really need to refer to the syllabus independently if the course if it had been changed in some way
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Basically ‘better still’ is very similar to even better. It’s really just a more elegant way of saying it. It’s used in a comparative way.
I think the dictionary definition is a bit clumsy and has confused you. You were totally right first time.
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"He is playing his toy car" is nonstandard. A native speaker may interpret this to mean "He is portraying the part of his toy car."
"He is playing with his toy car" is correct.
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Both are grammatical and idiomatic.
The first sentence suggests that you probably came down the stairs and you went back the same way.
The second sentence, where up the stairs is placed next to the verb, maybe suggests that you made a conscious choice to use the stairs (rather than, for example, the lift).
As this NGram graph shows, the form used in the ...
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You are mixing the phrases to go back (up) and to go up the stairs. Up the stairs is not the place you wish to return to. So
I went up the stairs back to the fourth floor.
is more accurate, because the fourth floor is your departing point. And in your OP you clearly explain that you want your sentence to mean return to work.
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In this context 'as' fuctions as 'because'.
As you are so excited, I would like to give you an opportunity to participate in this job.
This is different from the continuous form of 'when'.
As they finish their lunch, they pay the bill and walk out the restaurant.
You would have to use 'when' here.
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Not "The man" (this is an idiom for social control)
I'd prefer not to use "men" because that sounds as if women did know.
I don't like "humanity". We don't have a collective mind.
That leaves "humans" and "people" which are possible... but beg the question "what else is there that could have knowledge?&...
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The children are dressed as pirates. There is a common misconception that pirates say "Arrr" meaning yes: the children were acting on this misconception by saying "Arrr" to mean yes.
Here is some more information about it.
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Numbers in your sentence are not a part of speech in the English language. Parts of speech (nouns, pronouns, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection, and articles) are used for words.
The numbers in a sentence may be ordinal (represent rank or order of things), temporal (represent time), or nominal (identify something as in your ...
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I'm an Australian, so speak British English. To me, a lounge or lounge room, less commonly called a sitting room, is a room containing a lounge suite (set of soft/comfy furniture) where one quietly relaxes with a companion, knitting or crochet, a book, or TV, and on more formal occasions invites guests to relax and socialise with us. If there is a fireplace ...
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It is a complete utterance. It doesn't require anything else and listeners would not require you to say anything more.
Whether it is a sentence or not is more doubtful. It doesn't have a main finite clause. Most greetings are complete interjections like this. Just because something is an interjection doesn't make it a fragment. "Good afternoon!" ...
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"Length, breadth and depth of the program". This allows you to describe the structure in two dimensions.
A broad program covers many different topics. A deep program covers only a few topics but covers those very completely. A long program lasts for many terms and so allows for greater breadth and/or depth.
However "scope" and "...
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In the context of use with singular nouns, the word "united" most closely means "complete" or "whole," and often refers to the coming-together of separate parts.
For example, the United Kingdom is actually made up of four countries; England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, so is the unity of separate parts (like the United States)....
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While a vaguer term might include everything you need it to and more, I think it is best to be precise, especially in formal writing. If your connotations are the number of terms and the numbers of courses, then one refers to time and the other to variety. You could therefore say:
the length and diversity of the programme
Diversity is defined as
the fact ...
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Hello, everyone!, a greeting addressed to all those present or listening, is a valid sentence.
Good morning/afternoon/evening are all common greetings, a little more formal than hello or hi. Good night is usually reserved for parting.
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Clearly you have the gist of this already - using 'thanks' in any form is slightly more polite than without.
Using a single word ('Noted' or 'Done' or similar) to reply to an instructional message is absolutely fine if it is to someone you know well, such as your immediate boss.
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I think when you want to list it is ok to use the followings. In the sense of say, during your talk you are to cover the followings:
a. chicken;
b. hens;
c. rooster; and
d. birds
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Both "crossable" and "passable" have the idea of "going through, from one side to the other": "This road is so busy with cars it is uncrossable". You could use "uncrossable" to describe the borders, but not the country
You could perhaps use "unenterable": Not possible to be entered.
The borders of ...
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Yes, you can pull down the sun visor, and put the sun visor up.
There are lots of idiomatic ways to say this. Perhaps "fold down" and "fold away".
You should probably usually say "sun visor", as "visor" (without modification) usually means a transparent (or perforated) face-shield, such as on a motorcycle helmet. You ...
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The highlighted sentence is a conversational way of saying, "I admire that in China they want to do this seriously. This is certainly an unprepared quote -- someone speaking "off-the-cuff". If Martinis had written it or even had a moment to think about it, they would have phrased it similar to the way I did.
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It depends on how the items are obtained. If bread is sold in a package of one half loaf, then one would say "a half-loaf" of bread. If one cuts a loaf in twain, each is "half a loaf", or "half of a loaf."
In many markets, one may buy "a half watermelon," precut, or a whole melon, and slice "half a melon" at ...
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"diseases" is a "countable noun" and, therefore, is correct according to the Oxford Dictionary rule quoted above. And, correct use is -- most likely -- a natural use of "many".
An uncountable noun example would be "advice". You may get many comments (countable) for this question, but "many advice" is ...
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Yes, you are right. Leave out might mean you did it intentionally. Miss out (which, as gotube points out and Lexico confirms, is not used in the US) sounds the most accidental. This may be because the word miss on its own is so often associated with failure.
leave out: Fail to include someone or something.
miss out: [British] Fail to include someone or ...
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Is there a difference between 'speak fluently' and 'speak smoothly' in meaning?
Wiktionary can shed some light on this:
Fluent:
In casual use, “fluency” refers to language proficiency broadly, while in narrow use it refers to using a language flowingly, rather than haltingly.
Smooth:
Glib (Artfully persuasive but insincere in nature; smooth-talking, ...
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"Hilda has been tormented by girls" would be more usual.
Bedeviled is rarer and it tends to be more abstract or metaphorical. Looking at the examples from Merriam-Webster, one they give is a common usage "bedevilled by problems"; they also quote "The theory bedevils scientists, none of whom have been able to prove it true or false.&...
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I think your intuition is correct—I would not say "I am holding a party" when the party is actively going on.
I would say "I'm hosting a party" or "There is a party happening at my house." In both cases I would probably also add "right now" or "at the moment" at the end of each sentence to make it very clear.
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According to a previous question here, holding a party doesn't necessarily mean just organizing the party in the sense of placing chairs and putting decoration. And, going by the dictionary, hold can mean "cause to happen" rather than merely "organize". So you "holding a party" means "causing a party to happen" - that ...
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You're right that particular wording would generally come before the actual party. However, you could say that during the party itself if, for example, you get a phone call from someone you'd normally talk to but because of the party you don't really have time for it right that moment (although there are plenty of more normal ways of saying it).
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It is possible to find examples of both
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Generally, when people refer to their level in a certain language, the idiomatic technical word is fluent (or speak fluently). Smooth is used more to describe the manner of speech rather than to assess the level of language proficiency. As in smooth-talker:
a person who gets another person to do their bidding by using a slick, gently persuasive, practised, ...
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The adjectives "smoothly" and "fluently" might be interpreted differently in different contexts.
For a native speaker, "fluently" might be understood to mean: "quickly, clearly, using complex and technical vocabulary precisely" Whereas "smoothly might mean in a gentle flowing intonation."
For a learner "...
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The correct term to use for this is a graft. The term was originally used in horticulture, where a part of one plant is grafted onto another. One particular application is that most grapes are produced on vines where the scionwood of one species is grafted onto rootstock of a different species.
In recent years, the term has also been used in surgery, where ...
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All three of, "I bought it at/in/from the drugstore" are correct if you went inside the building. If you stayed outside, like the top picture above, then only "I bought it at/from the drugstore" are correct.
Generally, the difference between "in" and "at" is "in" requires the action to happen inside the ...
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In at X, X is a place or point on an area - and places/points are things that can be used to answer the question "where?"
At the request of XXX, Y - seems to be modeling that the request is "putting you in a place/point where" you must do Y.
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Look up "nerve flossing" and you should find your answer. This is a specific adaptation of the word "floss" that is separate from the dental or dancing meanings.
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I'm surprised that none of the answers so far give the source of this phrase: the poem Matilda, which is a precautionary tale for children, warning against lying, dating from the early part of the twentieth century when such tales were in vogue
. Since it is still under copyright I shan't reproduce it in full here, but it can be found online. Matilda is ...
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Both “big liar” and “little liar” are describing the person and not what they said. Some good examples are the book titles My Brother is a Big Fat Liar and God is a Big Fat Liar, which are humorous books about a child getting angry at someone. Pretty Little Liars is a book that is literally about attractive teenage girls who’ve told serious lies, whom we’re ...
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These Norse gods were pretty fierce, so here the author is using a simile:
a giant of a man, ruddy and gruff, like an angry Norse god.
All the adjectives would well describe the intimidating Scandinavian deities:
The source texts mention numerous gods, such as the hammer-wielding, humanity-protecting thunder-god Thor, who relentlessly fights his foes; the ...
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It's referring to the gods on the Scandinavian mythology, or Viking gods, like Thor, Odin and the like.
Some of them are typically depicted as muscular, fearless and big men, which given the preceding words on the phrase, makes that clear.
See here, for example.
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Most of them have the a similar meaning to "were you aware of the intonation pattern" with the exception of "find" and "discover" which have would a more "did you actively search for the intonation pattern" sense in that phrase.
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Yes, this is grammatically correct usage.
However the "singular they" is also grammatically correct usage (with written examples going back hundreds of years) and in modern times has come to be preferred by many people as less sexist than "he."
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As with much in the English language, it's entirely dependent on context and tone. I would say they are different but not actually in the difference between the definitions of 'little' and 'big'. Best illustrated with a few examples.
If my daughter said "Daddy, the mice ate all the chocolate biscuits again" with a naughty grin on her face, I might ...
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"You little liar" and "you big liar" are diminutives and/or familiars. They are also an example of the simplified usage that is typically reserved for children, akin to "baby-talk". While the meaning intended can somewhat echo the definitions for "little" and "big", the real point is to diminish, insult, or ...
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"You little liar" is in common usage. It is a compound insult, both calling the person little (e.g. petty) and also calling them a liar.
"You big liar" is not in common usage. It wouldn't be paired like that, because "big" is not such an insult.
"Big liar" is common; such as "Jim is a big liar". But it ...
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