Notes

According to many dictionaries including merriam-webster , update is a transitive verb. So I expect the following sentence (used in Firefox) to be incorrect: Please wait while Firefox is updating. I think Firefox is the object of this sentence and it should have been used like this: Please wait while Firefox is being updated. Is the first sentence grammatically correct? Answer "To update" is an example of an ambitransitive verb, which can be used with or without an object. In the intransitive case, it certainly feels like the pronoun "itself" is implied, but that's not generally how this kind of phrase is considered. Consider a more commonplace, less technical example, "to shave": In Penny Lane, the barber shaves another customer. John is shaving right now. In other languages - Spanish comes to mind - you would need a reflexive pronoun ( se ) in the second sentence (and in your Firefox sentence), but in English it's not necessary. After a bit o...

I've seen a few folks in various situations complain about the phrase "vast majority". The only online reference I can find for such dissent is (unfortunately?) the urban dictionary . I grant that the phrase is not particularly eloquent. But it is idiomatic and I use it myself quite frequently in technical documents to represent a figure over 90% but where I don't want to break the flow of text to present the actual value. So my question(s): Is the idiom "vast majority" something to avoid? Does it leave a bad impression? What are (better) alternatives? Answer I think "vast majority" is perfectly acceptable. Go for it. I suppose I am being quite idiosyncratic, but when I use an adjective in front of "majority", I use these rankings, especially when thinking about elections: Vast majority - means almost all or something like 90% or more, but less than unanimous. Overwhelming majority - means well beyond any hope of finding enough who are s...

Which preposition is correct and what is the difference in meaning if any? I went to the gym, something I haven't done for a long time. I went to the gym, something I haven't done in a long time.

I’m trying to create the following phrase: It is important not only to ____ but also to ____ in general. But the way I’ve written it above doesn’t sound that good to me. Since I’m not a native speaker, could anyone please help me to improve this? Answer The “not only  X but also Y ” correlative conjunction gives copyeditors no end of headaches. The problem commonly encountered with it is that X and Y are supposed to be grammatically parallel, but frequently people mess this up, so it doesn’t read right. So copyeditors are forced to recast the sentence. In the examples below, I will set the two things which “not only . . . but also” is governing — and which are therefore supposed to be parallel — in bold face . For example, this would be wrong: He not only ate shrimp but also cocktail sauce , too. [ WRONG ] That doesn’t work because ate is a verb while cocktail sauce is a noun. Instead that should be written as: He ate not only shrimp but also cocktail sauce , too. [ RI...

I was born and raised in some anglophone Asian country where people use the word "flat" to describe a battery when no electrical current can be generated by it. Some would even use the word "flat" to describe their phone when its battery is dead (although their phones are three dimensional). So one day I looked up OED and realised flat British (of a battery) having exhausted its charge. but I couldn't find this definition of flat in the New Oxford American Dictionary. So here are my questions: If I go to the States will people understand me when I say "My battery is flat"? How about "my phone is flat"? Is this usage of flat even common in the UK? Answer My battery is flat is perfectly fine in British English, but from the comments, it might not be understood in American English, depending on the context. My phone is flat is sometimes used according to a quick Google search, but it isn't particularly common in British English and may b...

What will be the title for 1 year old boy? will it be Mr. or Master or anything else I am not aware of? Pre marriage girls are addressed as Miss. and post marriage Mrs. is there anything similar to boys? Answer "Master", as "a youth or boy too young to be called mister " is often considered to be archaic (eg, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master ), but I still see it around.

Is there any difference between "Is there something wrong?" and "Is there anything wrong?"? Also, you would say "He would like something to drink" but "Would you like anything to drink?", right? I'd appreciate if any one could explain the usage of "something" and "anything". Answer As far as I can remember, this was a typical middle school exam question for British English in my years. "Would you like something to drink" expects a positive answer. I'm not sure what is the case in American English though.

I have a basic grammar question about the past tense. If I met a guy yesterday, which tense should I use about his name today? For example, "Yesterday I met a guy, his name is/was John." Answer Either is possible. In my personal opinion it comes down to context. Was this a fleeting acquaintance or someone you are likely to take up with in the future? Examples I met this guy yesterday, his name was John. He was very rude - I hope I never meet him again! I met this guy yesterday, his name is John. We're going to meet up for coffee. Come along and I'll introduce you. You can see in my examples that, in the first case, you are leaving John 'in the past'. In the second you are continuing the relationship to the present and into the future. I'll be interested to see if others agree with me.

I keep hearing people say everything is not… which frustrating because it is ambiguous. It could mean either Nothing is… ( for the set of all things, no thing is… ) or Not everything is… ( for the set of all things, some things are not…/not all things are… ) I have been hearing it more and more in the past few years. In fact, when you Google the phrase everything is not , you get Selena Gomez’s rendition of the Wizards of Waverly Place theme song which only further popularizes it with the youth. Is this phrase grammatically correct/legitimate (ie, would an English teacher complain?), and if so, which is the correct meaning (if any)?

I'm trying to find a word that describes a lack of confidence. Something that gives a sense of worthlessness maybe. I've dried looking up in Thesarus.com for similarities to lack of confidence and antonyms to self-worth, but with no luck. Anyone have some ideas? Answer According to OED: diffident : modest or shy because of a lack of self-confidence: a diffident youth. Another word as @Jim suggested would be timid . timid : showing a lack of courage or confidence; easily frightened: I was too timid to ask for what I wanted.

Inspired by this chat message (text is below), I have sometimes wondered if there is a word for the feeling that a person you were talking to about a particular subject was using the same words as you, but was actually talking about something else, or was leading into a very different and seemingly unrelated subject. Typically, you feel like the person is crazy by this point. Is there a single word for this? Is there a two- or three-word phrase, maybe? The chat message: There should be a word for that double-take sensation you get when you realize the conversation is further down the rabbit hole than you thought. Like when you are having what you think is a normal chat about interest rates, or something, and the other person mentions that we're all controlled by lizards from space.

When I say "wrong" people always mishear as "long". Pronouncing "r" and "l" correctly is always a big challenge for me. In Chinese we also have a syllable pronounced like "r" and a syllable pronounced like "l" and I can never pronounce them correctly. So how do I practice that in English?

The plural of "person" is "people". The plural of "people" is "peoples". Person-people-peoples is the only sequence like this that I know of, but I'm looking for another. (The equivalent question is, is there another plural noun which has become a singular countable collective noun?) EDIT For those of you that think that people is nothing but a collective noun (and not an irregular plural, like mice ), I urge you to consider: Do you treat other collective nouns as plurals? One person, two people, but one star, two galaxy? Do you treat other plurals as collective nouns? You can certainly say "a galaxy of stars" but do you say "a mice of mouses"? For those of you that think the customary plural of person is persons , try it on the next three, uh, persons you see: "Finish this sentence: 'one person, two _ ?' " Answer Fish , fish , fishes : one salmon, one fish , two, two fish ; salmon is one fish , hadd...

Which comes first in a sentence? I know some word pairs such as bacon and eggs , where bacon always comes first. E.g: Make me bacon and eggs for dinner, honey. Cats and dogs are the two most common pets I know of. What is the preferred order? Dogs are superior. Don't put dogs and cats together, they might fight! Cats are superior. Don't put cats and dogs together, they might fight! Answer Given the phrase it's raining cats and dogs , you might be led to believe that this is the usual ordering. However, COCA gives the following frequencies: cats and dogs 272 dogs and cats 359 So it seems there isn't really a preferred ordering.

I'm not a native speaker. Someone told my boss about my work, 'He called it a day'. Is it a rather neutral expression about ending some day work, or does it mean 'he's lazy and didn't finish it'?

I’m having a difficulty understanding “could they just have that for them unreachable pleasure” in the following sentence. If them means their , my questions will be solved. I’ll take it like this: if they could just have a piano for their unreachable pleasure. But I’m not familiar with such case. Am I misunderstanding something important? Or does the ‘them’ mean ‘their’? Owning a piano is for some a symbol of status. That’s very sad, because there are many gifted people who would like to give anything, could they just have that for them unreachable pleasure, that is now just looking decorative and impressive in somebody’s interior. ( People and Pianos by Marinus J. van Prattenburg: p9) [bold font is mine] Just for your information, the writer is a Canadian and lives on the west coast. (though I don’t know whether it’s relevant.) Answer The phrase "for them unreachable" is an adjectival phrase which describes "pleasure". It is to be parsed as "...could they...

People say "I'm having a baby." "I'm having a good time," or "I'm having friends over for dinner." but normally don't say "I'm having a car," "I'm having a cold." or "I'm having a solution." The typical "reasons" found in grammar books for this is that simple present is used for facts, and present progressive is used for temporary situations or when we don't know the exact start time of an activity. Or, the speaker will make a "choice" about what they want to say, so that the reason they said "The bus is leaving at 08:00" and not "The bus leaves at 08:00." is because they want to stress the temporary nature of the bus' departure time. This kind of duality often happens in ESL textbooks, for example in the travel chapters where the focus is not on simple present / present progressive usage but on vocabulary or collocations, so the authors are not as vig...

Why is Filipino spelled with an F ? Philippines is spelled with a Ph . Some have said that it's because in Filipino, Philippines starts with F ; but if this is so, why did we only change the beginning of Philippines? Answer As this article in the Spanish Wikipedia notes: El vocablo «Filipinas» deriva del nombre del rey Felipe II de España. The Philippines were named for King Philip II of Spain. They were « Las Islas Filipinas », which was anglicized to the Philippine Islands. The noun form retains the F ( Filipino ), while the adjective form uses Ph ( Philippine Embassy ). (I've seen older texts in British English that referred to the natives as "Philippinos.") As to why, there's this answer : English never had a suitable equivalent for Filipino – a “Philippine,” “Philippian” or “Philippinian” probably just didn’t sound right, so English adopted the Spanish word Filipino , retaining the letter F and the suffix, “ino." It's interesting to note that ...

While innocently passing by on my way to Big Rep City, I happened to overhear (alright! I was dropping eaves) a dialogue in some podunk Commentary Cafe wherein two fellow ELU consumers were debating whether the term “Yuppie” was an acronym or a portmanteau. Rapidly approaching the status of ‘ancient of days’, the term Yuppie brought me back (kicking and screaming, mind you) to the Eighties and made me long for the good ol’ days---the Sixties, man---when suddenly I had a flashback and the mental fog that is my cognitive life unaccountably dissipated long enough for me to realize that both of these users were wrong. Yuppie was neither an acronym nor portmanteau, but rather, half ‘n' half. The Eighties term, Yuppie, was in fact, the illegitimate bastard of the unholy union of the acronym Y.U.P. with the late-Sixties to early Seventies term, YIPPIE, which in turn was an appropriation of the last syllable of the Sixties counter-cultural epithet, HIPPIE. And the previous meaning adhered ...

In a movie I heard an actor saying "I'm dead serious". I looked up the dictionary and found that "dead" in this context means "really". Is it formal? Can we use it in business meetings? Answer Dead , as adverb, is informal when used to mean very , such as in "omelets are dead easy to prepare." (As far as I know, dead is used to mean very only in British English.) When dead is used to mean absolutely , completely , exactly , straight , or directly it is not used only in informal phrases.

I expect I would have to put down many coats to do the job. ( SOURCE ) One factor to distinguish phrasal verbs from prepositional verbs is particle movement. Phrasal verbs can place the particle before or after direct object, whereas the preposition in prepositional verbs must precede the noun. ( Biber et al. 1999 ) So, I'm confused when analyzing the fragment "put down many coats to" because I'm not able to distinguish whether "put ... " is a phrasal verb or a prepositional verb. The confusion arises when I read in the Oxford Dictionary of English, under 'put' → 'phrasal verb', the form " put something down to " is correct. So, the above sentence would be rewritten as follows : I expect I would have to put many coats down to do the job. Am I right? If not, how do I correctly distinguish phrasal verbs from prepositional verbs in the cases, like this one, where there are two particles (in this case 'down' and 'to')? A...

I am watching US Open these days on its website . There are advertisements by a company called "esurance", where a man showed to a woman a huge check and started to introduce "esurance", and then the woman replied "Subtle!", if I am right about what I heard. I can understand some usage of subtle as part of a sentence. But I was wondering what "Subtle!" means as a reply generally? Answer In English, single-word replies often denote sarcasm. A common example you might often see in movies and TV is: if someone says a lame joke and someone else replies in an unenthusiastic tone of voice, "Hilarious," it implies that the person thinks that the joke was not funny at all. In the case of your example, the lady was probably commenting on how unsubtle the man's advertising of Esurance was (modern commercials often enjoy poking fun at themselves in that meta way).

I have a question about violating verb tenses. I was taught that you can't use present perfect (or continuous) and past simple within a sentence. You either have to use present perfects (or continuous) with present perfects (or continuous), and past simples with past simples. But I've found this not to be true, so I'm a bit confused. Here is an email one of my native American friends sent me. Hey, it's been such a long time since we last emailed each other. Thanks for sending me an email! Getting that email was such a pleasant surprise, because I was just thinking how I've been wanting to send you an email as well. What confuses me the most is the last part. How can you say that you were thinking about how you have been wanting to do something? I was taught that this is wrong: "he has decided to go hiking, so I went hiking as well." But I'm assuming that my friend's email is correct, since he IS a native speaker. So, this is what I'm thi...

In the following example conversation, what will be the best way to ask if the given resources help the person? Example conversation: John: Hey Joe, I need to improve my chess, please help. Joe: Hello John, please check these links: http://example1.com and http://example2.com . Let me know if [those, they, that] help(s). Thanks!

I am wondering whether there is any difference between a gerund acting as subject and an infinitive acting as a subject.

I have always heard the term used in referring to a single word. When browsing questions on this site, I've seen it used applied to entire phrases, and have suppressed the compulsion to edit them and replace the term with origin . Answer Merriam-Webster defines etymology thusly : the history of a linguistic form (as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into its component parts, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language [emphasis mine] The key phrase there is "linguistic form". Words and morphemes are linguistic forms, but so are sentences and phrases. Sentences and complex phrases are not fixed enough to be really studied in an etymological sense, but common phrases, idioms, and other fixed forms are , so I see no problem with app...

I'm done or I've done When the class is over, our lecturer always says "OK, we're done." Is this sentence grammatically correct? Isn't it a passive form, which simply means we are done by sth./somebody? Can we use "we've done" instead in this case? Answer Yes. Done here means finished and has been used with this meaning since the 14th century, and no one batted an eyelid till 1917. It has been used by Dickens and Mark Twain amongst others, not to mention in the proverb: Man's work lasts till set of sun, woman's work is never done. See MWDEU - http://books.google.com/books?id=2yJusP0vrdgC&pg=PA361

What is a good word for “best example”? I would like to describe a film as the greatest example of its features.

'Ironic' is often used to mean an unusual coincidence rather than its true meaning which is closer to sarcastic. That being said, is there a word that would be a good replacement for what many people seem to think it means? Answer I'd say something about the matter, but I think I'll let George Carlin say it instead because he's more eloquent: Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father's, it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence. Irony is "a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result." For instance: If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck, he is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar...

I can describe "IMHO" as an acronym for "in my humble opinion." How can I describe the reverse processes of translating the acronym into the actual phrase? That is to say, if "IMHO" is the acronym, what do we call "in my humble opinion"? Answer The spelled-out form of an acronym or initialism (that is, "what it stands for") is called its expansion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym_and_initialism

I've been wondering, what is the difference between seek and search ? When should one be preferred over the other? Answer The words seek and search can often both be used for similar purposes. However, they are really quite different. One fundamental difference is that the object of seek is the item you are trying to locate, whereas the object of search is the place you are looking in. E.g.: I will seek my true love in this club. I will search this club for my true love. Also, seek implies that the seeker knows that the item they are looking for does exist. Search has no such implication.

There is some idiom that starts out like, "I'm going to start taking names and..." I can't remember the rest of it. What is it and when is it used? Answer Are you perhaps referring to this? I'm going to start kicking ass and taking names

Is using "and/or" allowed in formal writing? If not, is there general way to represent the OR binary operator with as little space as possible in written English? Answer I believe most style books advise against using and/or in formal writing. By "formal" I mean in newspapers or novels. If space is extremely limited, most writers would have no qualms about it, as in dictionary entries or footnotes. The reason is that or can mean either "either A and not B, or B and not A" or "A or B or both" in ordinary language: 99 % of the time, readers will be able to figure out whether it is used inclusively or exclusively based on context. If ambiguity could arise, the writer should add some context to make it clear: This test may be taken on June 5 or July 12. May the test be taken twice? There are several ways to clarify this, though not every way may work in any situation. Suppose the answer was yes: This test may be taken on June 5 and July 12 [this ...

How to pronounce "slash" in giving an address, meaning the corner of 2 streets? I live at 1/9 Park Lane. Should it be read as one slash nine Park Lane?

In phrases such as Russian Roulette , Dutch Courage and French Letter the nationality changes the meaning of the noun. Is there a word for this? Answer Although I can't locate a technical term for these, the terms nationality idioms and ethnicity idioms appear to be commonly used.

I asked a résumé checker to check my résumé and she gave me the following answer: When you look at the below list of issues, you'll probably think I'm tearing your resume apart. I guess I am, in a way. But, I swear, your resume is pretty good. What does she mean by tearing my résumé apart ?

Commonly, "animals" means "all animals, except humans". So is there a single word for "animals, including humans"? Particularly, if you had a list of two choices, animal or human, what would you write as the heading? Context: I'm building an input form for game designers to fill out about things you can encounter in a fantasy world. And one property of an encounter is whether it's an encounter with humans, animals, and possibly more categories to be determined later (e.g. spirits, monsters, undead?). Answer This is a tricky one because people differ in what they consider to be an animal. Not only that but a biological dictionary would give a different answer from an everyday dictionary. Some would say that humans are distinct from animals. (creationists for example) Some would say that humans are animals. (evolutionists for example) Some don't include lizards as animals. Others don't include insects. It depends whether you want a technical...

Is layman a gender specific term, or can it be used like (college) freshman ? Is it still appropriate to use, or has it been superseded by some other term? Specific to IT, it seems more appropriate to say user instead of layman . However, are the two equivalent, or are there any subtle differences? Answer The gender issue is a tricky one. Many words ending with - man (e.g., chairman, fireman, layman) seem to be referring to males. As women moved into these professions, some took offense to a word implying that women were not included. There's been a move away from that, and the - man suffix is often interpreted to mean a person , not necessarily a man . NOAD, Collins, M-W, and Macmillan all define layman with terms like someone or a person , such as: a person who does not belong to a particular profession or who is not expert in some field (M-W) a person without professional or specialized knowledge in a particular subject (NOAD) Collins adds a note that layperson is a gen...

I came across this infographic which contains the following claim: Some grammarians consider "ly" ending adverbs as bad style in formal writing. Are there any serious style advice sources that actually make this dubious claim? What's the theory for how avoiding such adverbs improves writing? I've done some further research and found that this notion is widespread, but there is little citation or authority. Where did this idea come from? For what it's worth, here's a blog entry that claims "Aspiring science-fiction authors receive one piece of advice above all others: Forsake the adverb, the killer of prose. It's terribly, awfully, horrendously important." — Seriously, What’s So Bad About Adverbs? To make the point about as clear as I can - using "ly" ending adverbs is BAD WRITING for fiction writers. — Those "ly" Ending Adverbs

Why is distro , rather than distri , short for distribution in Linux world? Answer My guess is that distro might have been inspired by shortenings like repo[sitory] , algo[rithm] , memo[randum] &c.

I am looking for a short and concise term (preferably one word) that can be used as a hypernym for essentially everything that contains (audio) speech (e.g. audiobooks, podcasts, recorded news bulletins, recorded performances of comedians,..). Does such a term exist? I've thought about 'speech', but that seems to be more adequate for e.g. political speeches, and not so much for audio books and the like. But maybe I'm wrong.

If I want to mention the word "furlong", for example, should I use furlong , "furlong", or 'furlong'? Also, am I correct in putting the punctuation outside the quotes? Answer Any of those options will work, but if you refer to words more than once you should take care to use the same convention in each place. Italics seem the best option if you can use styled text, but styles aren't always available. In American English, it's conventional to place punctuation marks inside quotes instead of outside. There are a lot of situations where that practice leads to ambiguity, though, such as when instructing the reader to type something: Click in the text field and type "salami". It's good to know the accepted convention and follow it when possible, but convention should take a back seat to clarity. A typographic convention, such as using italics instead of quotes, can solve the problem by eliminating the quotes, but even then it's not alwa...

When someone purchase something from somewhere and I ask him the location of purchasing, which one is the correct question: Where did you buy it? OR Where did you buy it from? Is preposition necessary to use in this question or there is no need to use it?

If the subject of a sentence is separated by "and/or", should the verb be pluralized, as with "and", or agree with the rightmost subject, as with "or"? For example: His co-workers and/or his boss was at fault. vs. His co-workers and/or his boss were at fault. Answer I checked online to see how other interested parties have come out on this question. Grammar Girl votes for consistently treating the combined subject as plural: If you feel you must use "and/or," my nonscientific survey of professional writing shows that you probably want to treat "and/or" as though it makes the subject plural. For example, Kelly's sentence would read This message and/or attachments are confidential. I must say, though, that I don't see how you could come to that conclusion and not insist that the construction requires an explicit "these" after the "and/or" conjunction: This message and/or these attachments are confidential. I...

I found the expression “Check and mate!” in the following sentence describing furious exchange of words between CNN host Piers Morgan and rightwing radio host and anti-gun-control propagandist Alex Jones on gun-control in the video titled “Shoots off his mouth on Piers Morgan” in Time magazine’s (Jan 8) Entertainment Section. When Morgan managed to work in a question like, “How many gun murders were there in Britain?” Jones answered, “How many great white sharks kill people and yet they’re afraid to swim?” Check and mate! From the definition of ‘checkmate” in Cambridge English Dictionary, "noun (2) a situation in which someone has been defeated or a plan cannot develop or continue", it is obvious that “check and mate” here means Jones’s answer was the finish blow that shut Morgan’s mouth up. However, I was unable to find “check and mate” in any of Cambridge, Oxford, and Merriam-Webster English dictionary, though they all register “checkmate.” Google Ngram registers “check an...

Is there an abstraction for the following three words? Order confirmation Quotation Invoice I want to create a base class for them but I can't find a word that describes all three. Answer With respect, you don't actually want a synonym, you want an abstraction that encompasses the general case. You say as much yourself when you talk about a "base class". So why not look at what is common in these three things? Each of them is a communication of information about an order, between two or more parties. Each of them will have a date, a sender, an order reference, and one or more recipients. Sounds awfully like we are talking about a letter. Or more generally, a communication. Or maybe correspondence. As a programmer, I'd probably go for something like order-correspondence. Then, when I realise that I also need a class for receipt I've got a ready-made base class. On the other hand, given such a problem, I'd probably go back to the design board and have a go...

By virtue of separating two closely related but separate thoughts, the semi-colon can generally be replaced by a full stop. I don't mean in the beauty and sound of it, but just grammatically. Can you think of any examples where the full stop, if used, changes the meaning or sense from what the semi-colon would provide? Again, I don't mean in terms of poetic license or what would make for better writing. I just mean in terms of meaning of the 2 thoughts. Of course, if you believe that my first line itself is contentious, discuss it. But if you do get my drift, then think up some sentences please.

When should I use can ? When should I use could ? What is right under what context? Answer Since your name seems Indian, I'll also mention a common Indian-English idiosyncrasy that may clear up matters for you. There is a tendency in Indian speech to use "could" for "can", and "would" for "will". This is wrong (or, to avoid being prescriptive, certainly at variance with other varieties of English, and non-standard even in India). Properly, "could" (subjunctive) is used to express possibility , things that may or may not happen, may or may not be done, etc. (to ask polite questions, for instance) — or in the past tense. If you're using it in the same sense as "can" (for a straightforward expression of ability), you're probably using it incorrectly. For instance: We could go (if we like / but we won't / etc.), but We can go (= We are capable of going / It is possible for us to go) They could see us from the towe...

Which is it? You cannot eat your cake and have it, too. meaning you can have it or you can eat it, but once it's gone there's no cake left to eat. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. meaning, as I understand it, you actually own the cake, so you can eat it if you want to. A brief Google search suggests the second option is common usage (though I would argue misusage.) Answer There is absolutely no difference in meaning between the two orderings: You cannot have your cake and eat it, too You cannot eat your cake and have it, too The meaning is simply that the cake cannot be both eaten and saved for later. The two options are mutually exclusive. Neither are misworded, misordered or misused.

I am looking for a phrase to describe a "collection of false exaggerations", something that can fit well in the following line: I am really shocked to see this, it seems that everything you told me before was just a collection of false exaggerations. I don't think "collection of false exaggerations" is a real phrase. "Bag of lies" is a similar phrase but not with the same meaning. I am looking for a phrase that can directly replace mine in the above sentence or otherwise any other way to say the above sentence while keeping the feelings same. The feelings here being that my expectations were set too high due to a lot of exaggerated information fed to me.

I use WordWeb which is available online for vocabulary. But, is there any equivalent for getting the meaning and origin of phrases ?

The following is from Pride and Prejudice : Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. What does the phrase quick parts mean?

I've written: I expect to see you on Monday. I'm counting the days. To improve it, I've changed it in: With the expectation to see you on Monday, I'm counting the days. A friend told me: No! You should write the following. With the expectation of seeing you on Monday, I'm counting the days. Who's the smart one? My friend or me? Is there a general rule to apply here? Like with expect/expectation , but also for willing/wish , etc. Answer One of the properties of individual words in a language - and often one of the hardest for foreigners to learn - is what linguists call their "subcategorization frame" : the particular kinds of word and phrase that they require, or allow, to follow them in a sentence. Rhodri's answer is generally correct: "expect" requires a direct object, which may be of various types including a "that" clause ("I expect that he will come", and an infinitive clause ("I expect to win"). But ...

Both "unfeasible" and "infeasible" are words according to spell-check, and they appear have similar dictionary definitions. But what is the difference between the two words? Is one more acceptable to use than the other? Answer Jacking the Link From The Comment (Thanks Josh61), It seems that the words are interchangeable, and it matters not which you choose to use, and is completely down to preference. One interesting thing to note is that the variant with the "un" prefix was the most common, until the 1970's when the "in" prefix shot past it by a long way. It would be interesting to know the reason for this, but I guess that is a question for another time.

What would be a good term for the subject of a requirement ? If one has a requirement applied to them, they would be the [word] of that requirement. I'm looking for something more descriptive than subject or target . Constrained seems like a good fit, but it feels a bit unwieldy?

What do you call two people with the same age? I'm not looking for age range or age group. Answer Generally we Americans, if we have need to refer to some such group, will either say people the same age , or, in some contexts, refer to The Class of 1960 , referring to high school or college graduation year. Demographers sometimes refer to people born the same year as (for example) the Cohort of 1942 . I happen to be a member of both of these groups.

If protégé is the person who receives, so-to-speak, who is the giver? That is, what's the terms used for the person under whose patronage the protégé is? Answer The other person in the relationship with a protégé could be a protector , a patron or rarely a patrona (a female form of patron , normally not used, and hence implying that there is something significant in this protégé benefiting from a woman's patronage, hinting at a motivation for her generosity in the matter). Most often though, the word is used to suggest that the protégé is learning from this person, and so that person is a mentor . Certainly in the other direction, the person who benefits from a mentor is a protégé . (Unless again, we felt the need to distinguish a female protégée for some reason).

I am having some trouble discerning appositives from their nouns in apposition. Consider an example from the Wikipedia article on appositives, "My friend Alice Smith likes jelly beans." "My friend" is the subject, while "Alice Smith" is a restrictive appositive. Then consider "I visited Canada, a beautiful country." Here, "Canada" is an object, while "a beautiful country" is a non-restrictive appositive, according to the article. Why isn't "a beautiful country" the object and "Canada" a restrictive appositive, since it narrows the scope down from "a beautiful country" to a particular beautiful country? The criteria can't be that the noun in apposition is always placed before the appositive in a sentence, as the article specifies that the appositive appears first in the sentence, "The first to arrive at the house, she unlocked the front door." This example also restricts us from s...

In Boston Legal (TV series) married couples are announced as "Mr and Mrs Ivan Tiggs" or "Mr and Mrs Denny Crane" - including the husbands' first names. Why is that? Is it used commonly or only in this series? Answer From the entry Mrs in Wikipedia : Mrs. was most often used by women when married, in conjunction with her husband's first and last names (e.g., Mrs. John Smith). A widow was and still is addressed with the same title as when she was married. Mrs. was rarely used before a woman's first name, maiden name, or before a hyphenated surname her husband was not using. For example, Mrs. Jane Miller (wife of John Smith), Mrs. Jane Smith, or Mrs. Jane Miller-Smith were considered incorrect by many etiquette writers, especially of the early 20th century.[3] It is now less common for a woman to be addressed using her husband's first name, except when the couple is being addressed jointly, such as in Mr. and Mrs. John Smith.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke Is there an idiom, phrase or preferably a single word that we can call people that could have helped but didn't ? Bystanders don't necessarily have help to give. Cowards aren't particularly helpful either. Addendum: For example, once EMS has arrived on scene, bystanders are encouraged not to try to help, unless they're a nurse and therefore have the necessary skills to, and sometimes even then so. If in The Service, I would not want a coward (a liability) next me holding the line. Not to take anything away from these great answers, or to insist on a non-militaristic point of view, I would like to veer into the commercial or civilian realm in which I find this quote most often alluded to, E.G., "If we all gave 5 cents we could cure cancer tomorrow." Pretend most of us did give 5 cents and we did cure cancer, but you didn't give. You are now a(n) ____ ...

I have seen people using could of instead of could have . Are both of them correct? Is there a difference in meaning between them?

The Late Show host, Stephen Colbert (an American talk show host, don't mind that, just think of him as some random guy you don't have to care about) quite often uses a type of joke whereby he describes one thing to mislead you, then name the other thing that you've thought the preceding description described but in fact didn't. For example: Is there a term for this kind of joke? Answer On Chris Head's site, a page called " Stand-up Comedy Fundamentals: Part 2, Misdirection " (July 28, 2016) uses the term misdirection for this type of set-up-based joke: Having explored set-up/ payoff in the first blog we now turn out attention to a particular kind of set-up/ payoff: misdirection . I would unconsciously have laughed at misdirection for years, but I first became consciously aware of it watching Have I Got News For You in the 90s. (A formative decade for me.) I didn't yet have a word for it, but I began to notice that host Angus Deayton would often ma...

Is there any precedent for abbreviating the word Units , and if more than one, is there any standardized prescription (no pun intended on my example) for which abbreviation to use in which context? The question came up because I'm making a user input form with a field for units and the framework optionally specifies an abbreviation for the input field's label. So, in a medical context, this Prescription: [Hydrocodone] is as valid is this Rx: [Hydrocodone] But can this Units: [Milligrams] be correctly substituted with something like this? U: [Milligrams] (NB, I'm not asking specifically about a medical context or about the accuracy of U , it's merely an example) Note that the meaning of units as a synonym for pieces (pcs.) may be a different answer. In this case, I'm asking about units as a category including kilograms and miles . (Bonus points for also providing the answer for that other meaning.) Answer In materiel management these distinct concepts of "u...

What would be the correct name for the following formula: is + past participle. Would this be the present perfect? An example sentence would be- The meat is stored in the freezer.

I answered-correctly 4, 5, 6, and 7, but missed questions 1, 2, and 3. What is a word for answered-correctly ? I have normally heard got used in this context, but I am looking for a word that suggests what is being referred to is a question whereas got is more general and does not suggest that. The closest to this I've come up with so far are solve , unravel , and unriddle .

Photographers seems to love to say this. Is this still considered funny? Answer Because of the way that Cheese should be pronounced, especially when it should be pronounced emphatically (the exclamation mark at the end), it should cause your cheeks to rise and your lips to part and your eyes to slightly lower on the corners. This causes your face to lighten. Additionally, it is rather an odd command, so it generally induces people to smile while opening their cheeks and exposing more of their face to the camera. But really, just smile wide and look at the camera (and don't blink!)

I've always been fascinated by these two words, as they seem to have the exact opposite meaning as expected. Is it because of the etymology? Or perhaps the meanings were switched at some point in time? Answer A parkway is supposed to be a pleasant scenic place, like a park. A driveway is probably the only place on your personal property that you can actually drive.

I'm trying to determine whether a clause with an implied subject can be considered independent - specifically in the case of compound sentences. For example: "I was tired, but went to the party anyway." To my thinking, the second clause is an independent clause because the reiterated "I" is implied, but I can't find much to back this up. Thoughts?

For example, is it acceptable to say “Anyways, I love Stack Exchange" or should "anyway" always be used? Answer From Paul Brians’ book named " Common Errors in English Usage ": “ Anyways ” at the beginning of a sentence usually indicates that the speaker has resumed a narrative thread: “Anyways, I told Matilda that guy was a lazy bum before she ever married him.” It also occurs at the end of phrases and sentences, meaning “in any case“: “He wasn’t all that good-looking anyways.” A slightly less rustic quality can be imparted to these sentences by substituting the more formal anyway . Neither expression is a good idea in formal written English. The two-word phrase “any way” has many legitimate uses, however: “Is there any way to prevent the impending disaster?” So you may prefer using "anyways" colloquially but "anyway" is a more formal way.

So, my boss comes in, railing that "English is a stupid language!" Since this is pretty much a thrice-weekly occurrence 'round these parts, I barely raised an eyebrow, and waited for him to continue. "Mary just wrote to tell us that she's back from maternity leave, and I want to congratulate her and ask whether she had a girl or a boy, but I can't do it without calling the child an 'it'!" I blinked, then confirmed that yes, he believes the it in "Is it a boy or a girl" is the impersonal pronoun, the same word you'd apply to an apple or a house. Is it the 'thing' pronoun, really? Or is it just a placeholder of some sort? I used to believe the latter: I gave the boss a mini-lecture about "it's raining" and the dummy subject pronoun . He wasn't convinced, however, and now he's got me doubting too. (Harumph. I really should know better than to listen to the boss.) I'm not asking about politeness, he...