Notes

Maybe it's been around longer, but I first heard somebody say, "No, yeah" only several years back. I thought it was peculiar to that individual, but no: I have heard it many times since, including by somebody whose surname was, perhaps serendipitously, Noyes. Does anybody know the history of this odd phrase? Is it new, or just relatively new to me? And does it even make sense? Answer 'Yeah. No.' in the sense of 'I think so—oops, I was wrong!' Use of "Yeah. No." with a consistent intonation but with the two expressions pointing toward diametrically opposed conclusions (usually with comedic undertones) is probably fairly recent, at least as a popular trope in English. This is the usage that appears in Tallulah Darling, My Ex from Hell (the Blooming Goddess Trilogy Book One) (2013): Their fie simply bounced harmlessly off the air above the fence. I really was in a giant protective shield. I smiled thinly. My turn. I figured that since I had the up...

In German it was customary to decline Latin words used in German prose. One might, for instance, speak of performing a reductionem ad absurdum, using the the accusative form of the word reductio when it has the function of the direct object. Are there any (relatively recent) examples of this in English litterature?

Is it appropriate to use "e.g." in a sentence without using parentheses? This administrative access control should provide visibility into access via multiple vectors (e.g. group access rights versus individual account rights). This administrative access control should provide visibility into access via multiple vectors e.g. group access rights versus individual account rights. Answer It is certainly appropriate to use "e.g." in a sentence without deploying parentheses. In your Example 2, I would place a comma before "e.g.". Parenthesizing examples is purely the prerogative of the author, usually serving as a means of indicating the perceived importance of the examples to the thought being expressed.

I am not a native English speaker/writer, but I am working on a technical thesis written in English. To me, for some unknown reason, it feels natural to write the following: However, the simplicity of the theory implies that it is not possible in reality, lest someone would surely have already done it. Googling for the definition of lest seems to imply that this is not a correct usage. So, can I use lest like I do, and if not, do any of you also feel there is any merit to my spontaneous feeling that it actually is ok to use it here? The first answer of this post ( Is this usage of "lest" possible? ) seems to support my case, but i am not sure. Answer Two things. Lest is always followed by the subjunctive mood. ODO's example is he spent whole days in his room, wearing headphones lest he disturb anyone Your example doesn't do this, nor can it. Lest is a conjunction and means "to avoid the risk of" ( ODO ), and generally that phrase can be slotted in, ...

I often find a joke titled, ‘When a grandma goes to court’ followed by the line, ‘Lawyers should never ask a question if they aren’t prepared for the answer.’ I don’t know if it’s a popular joke or not. It deals with an elderly woman called to the stand as the first witness. She knows everything about the background and secrets of both prosecuting and defense attorneys. Realizing that she knows too much, the judge asks both attorneys to come to the bench and tells, “If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I’ll send you both to the electric chair.” In this joke, the old woman says to the prosecuting attorney, "You think you are some big shot on the rise, but you don't have the brains to realize you are nothing more than a ' two-bit paper pusher .' Yes sir, I know you!" What does “two-bit paper pusher” mean? Answer It means that she considers the attorney to be an unimportant clerk rather than an important lawyer Two bit : small change (ie cheap/unimport...

I have found this phrase that as a non-native English speaker perplexes me: ...returning images with a resolution of up to one-half meter per pixel. The possible meanings of "one-half" to me are: Every pixel represents half a meter Every pixel represents one and a half (1.5) meters Every pixel may represent any possible distance between the minimum of half a meter and the maximum of one meter Something entirely different Can you please explain? N.B. Is it one and a half meter OR one and a half meter s ? Answer To me (a British English native) the expression is unambiguous in meaning: 0.5 metre per pixel [UK metre = US meter ] i.e. one-half of a metre per pixel In answer to your N.B., the plural form would be: one and a half metre s (or meter s ) 1.5 metre s (or meter s ) Addendum: Additionally, also note that the resolution is " up to one-half meter per pixel", so the resolution may be less than 0.5m per pixel, but no lower resolution limit is specified.

Propositions such as When Hell freezes over , When pigs fly , and When chickens get teeth are used to emphasize the impossibility of an event happening. Is there a term for these expressions in the way that a terse statement of a general truth, such as “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," is an aphorism ? Answer You may call them idioms of improbability Wikipedia says: There are many idioms of improbability, used to denote that something is impossible or unlikely to occur.

I am trying to write a lesson about QASM question structure (Where did you go, what will they see etc.) How should I explain the fact that the following questions don't seem to take an auxiliary verb? How many of the students come from (cityname)? Which colour suits me the best in your opinion? Whose parents drive them to school everyday? I realise the QASM structure cannot be used for 100% of questions but is there a good way to explain when and why auxiliaries are not needed? Answer When the question word is the subject there is no auxiliary verb and the verb agrees with the subject. Who do you love? I love you. you is the object. The question is looking for object. 'You' are the subject who loves someone. Who loves you? She loves me. The question is looking for the person who loves me. It looks for the subject. I am supposing your students know what subject and object is. Give a few more examples and point out all the questions are trying to understand who or what is th...

I had heard, a number of years ago, that there is a name for an type of idiomatic expression in which two things are joined to refer to one thing. An example of this would be “raining cats and dogs ”. This does not mean that cats is a metaphor for one type of rain, and dogs another, but rather that the combined terms form a joint expression with a single referent. Likewise, “ bread and butter ” could be used similarly, e.g., “they should waste their time trying to sell frozen steaks; jewelry is QVC’s bread and butter ”. Is there a name for the specific type of idiomatic expression? Answer I believe the word for this is hendiadys: literally "one from two". The term is used when two things are joined together to refer to one.

When talking about firsts that happened in the past, is it okay to use the present tense? For instance, if we want to talk about George Washington being the first president of the United States, could we say: "George Washington is the first president of the United States."? Technically he still is the first president and will be the first for the rest of time. But, he is no longer the president so should the statement be made in the past tense? Answer No, George Washington was the first president of the United States. The simple past ( was ) is used to describe an action that started and finished at a specific time in the past. The simple present ( is ) is used to describe a general truth ("He is tall") or a specific condition ("He is coming") that currently applies. We can certainly say that George Washington is dead, or that George Washington is a hero to many, because we are then describing a current condition. Neither would we say "John Adams i...

Addiction is defined as "the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma." But sometimes a person will find something which they do not suffer any withdrawal from when the y stop doing it for a while, and they do not feel any great need to seek out on your own. Yet when they are actively engaged with it, they just do not want to stop and can find it very difficult to pull themselves away from. As an example, "My son is addicted to MineCraft. Once he sits down at it he will play for hours, not even wanting to stop to eat or sleep even when all his friends have gone home. Yet unless one of his friends wants to play it with him to begin with he never touches it." I feel like "addicted" is the wrong word, because while the "psychological enslavement" part is correct, it does not seem to form a habit or exhibi...

Gambiarra in Brazilian Portuguese means a device, solution, or means to an end made impromptu, usually in a sloppy way and lacking care. I was wondering if there was a single word in English for such a concept. The closest I found was the two-word verb 'jerry-rig,' but I couldn't find a noun for it. Answer Besides Cool's good suggestion of • slapdash (“Done hastily; haphazard; careless”, but I'd substitute not careful in place of careless ) and suggestion of • slipshod (“Done poorly or too quickly; slapdash”, but I'd say slipshod work is lower in quality than slapdash work), and the suggestions in comments of • hack (“An expedient, temporary solution, meant to be replaced with a more elegant solution at a later date” or “A try, an attempt”), • kludge (“an improvised device, usually crudely constructed” or “any construction or practice, typically inelegant, designed to solve a problem temporarily or expediently”), • jury-rig (“To create a makeshift, ad ho...

What is the difference between a phrase and a clause? I tried looking this in dictionary but can not identify the difference. It would be great if I could get an example and formula of what makes a phrase and a clause. Answer The short answer: clauses contain a subject and its verb, while phrases do not. Note that phrases may contain nouns and verbals, but won't have the noun as the verb's actor. The long answer: see this page from the University of Chicago which has several examples.

Quite often (9 out of 10 times?), on radio (NPR), when the interviewer says "Thank you" to the interviewee, the reply is also "Thank you." What has happened to "You're welcome?" Why is "You're welcome" so uncomfortable to say?

Reading doth not a writer make. This sounds all wrong so why it is acceptable to use? The word order looks to be all out sequence (Object-Subject-Verb). It should be "reading does not make you a writer" (Object-Verb-Subject). And if this is Shakespearian, when and how did the word order in English change? Answer Let me offer an interpretation of this sentence. The verb of the sentence is "doth not make", the subject is the gerund "reading" and the object is "a writer". So the order is in fact subject-verb-object except that part of the verb ('make') is pushed to the end. This is a figure of speech called hyperbaton, and its purpose is to place the emphasis on that part of the verb rather than on the object of the verb. There is additionally the use of the archaic "doth" for "does", but that is a minor matter. So the emphasis is "Reading does not make you a writer." In this particular case it is also an idio...

Apart from its use among the bean-counters who talk about maximising company profits, I can't understand why price point has spread so widely in popular American parlance. As far as I can tell, the term is exactly synonymous with price ; do people use it the way they do the word 'monies' — to sound clever on the cheap — or is there actually a difference between the two terms?

"The dark brown coat will match the light brown pants perfectly" Do 'dark' and 'light' function here as adjectives modifying 'brown' or are they adverbs informing us to the manner of degree? I've always read them as adjectives, but a Cingletree grammar resource listed them as adverbs.

“A discussion of”, “a discussion on”, and “a discussion about”: When is each phrase used in preference to the other? If context is important, I want to use it as a subheading on a piece of non-fiction. Answer Oh lordy, another "there's a difference, but I can't quite put my finger on it" question. But I'm gonna try anyway. :) A discussion about a topic — this implies that the discussion was just a conversation, really, and it might not have stayed strictly on-topic. A discussion of a topic — this brings to mind a true discussion, going into all sorts of details of the topic (and only the topic). A discussion on a topic — here I picture the discussion to be somewhat one-sided, almost a lecture. Note that all of these connotations are vague and amorphous, and can be overridden by customary usages, or by what "sounds best" in a given context. If you pressed me to suggest a single best choice, today I'd go with "of". No guarantees about ...

I always wanted to understand the meaning of the word for when coming after ask , and I have two question about it: Let's say that I'm asking for a flower on behalf of my mother . If the flower man asks me: "For whom do you ask me for a flower?" and I answer him "I ask it for my mother" - is it equal to : "For whom do you ask for a flower" and "I ask for my mother" ? To be clearer: Do I have to mention any noun after I say ask so it wouldn't sound as if I want someone to give me my mother? What is the difference between I'm asking a flower and I'm asking for a flower ? Do the first option have to be that I'm talking to flowers? Thank in advance. Answer In the form “I'm asking for X ”, the meaning depends in part on what X is. 1.a. If X is an item or amount, the sentence typically is a statement that you are requesting that item or amount: I'm asking for bread ⇒ You want some bread I'm asking for $100...

a quick question: Don't let the sun go down in your heart, my child, lest fear and woe would follow in your wake. Is the above sentence correct, mainly the 'lest' part? English is not my native language. I am also uncertain about the use of the word 'would'. Thanks in advance! Answer It's: "lest fear and woe follow in your wake". "Lest" is followed by an infinitive phrase with a bare infinitive. Otherwise it's fine !

For at least a year and half, I read "deprecated" as "depreciated", even when writing it down myself, I would spell it as "depreciated", even though pretty much every time I read it, it was spelt correctly (the intended meaning, was the meaning of "deprecated"). (When I finally spoke the word in conversation, obviously in the wrong context, and got told I should use deprecated, I was somewhat freaked out, especially after reading the same material I previously had, only to find it had all magically changed.) I see from Stack Overflow I'm not the only one: https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=depreciated Can depreciated have a similar meaning to deprecated in any circumstances? (And why after reading it spelt correctly so many times, or just after the first, would I say it in my head and write it down incorrectly?) Secondly, what is the difference between deprecated and obsolete?

I started with "Michael is drinking water", which I could convert to "Water is being drunk by Michael", which I could change to the past tense as "Water was being drunk by Michael". That leads me to believe that I could change "Water is being drunk by Michael" to the future tense as: "Water will be being drunk by Michael". Am I right? (In case somebody suggests "Water will be drunk by Michael", I believe that has a different connotation because I would derive it from "Michael drinks water" to "Water is drunk by Michael" and then change the tense to future to get "Water will be drunk by Michael".) Answer Syntactically, yes, the sentence is correct. It's the Passive Future Progressive. The direct derivation is: Michael will be drinking water. >>> Water will be being drunk by Michael. But the real question is, what do you want to mean by it, and in what situation? You would have to be r...

There was the following sentence in New York Times (April 12) article titled, ‘Lone Wolf’ Theory Gains Ground in Texas Deaths” “The Kaufman County district attorney’s office is small compared with those in Houston or Dallas. It has about 13 prosecutors, and Mr. Hasse’s docket the month he was killed provides a glimpse of the kinds of cases common in the county: burglary, aggravated assault, forgery, theft of a firearm.” Is it common in today’s English not to use prepositions such as “in,” “of,” or "during" before nouns specifying time? I know the expressions like “It happened the day he arrived in New York” is prevalent, but does it look redundant or outdated if I put “Mr. Hasse’s docket of (in) the month he was killed ....”? Are there any handy rules with which I can judge easily when I should use and not use prepositions before nouns of time - year, month, week, day, and hour? Answer This is a very good question and it made me do some serious digging. Here is what I found...

Suppose I have the sentence: "All apples are green." Although it is not a true statement, clearly it is a declarative sentence. Can any declarative sentence like this be made into an interrogative sentence (a question) merely by replacing the period with a question mark? The reason I ask is because the typical word order for such a question would be: "Are all apples green?" Notice that the verb has been moved to the beginning of the sentence. This is the way most of us would word the sentence when phrasing it as a question.

Citizens of the USA naturally refer to themselves as Americans and refer to the country as America. When speaking to a person from Canada, he argued that it was incorrect to call the country America. Instead, I should be saying the United States (of America). Is it incorrect to refer to the country as America? And even if it is, won't people from around the world understand that the USA = America?

Is there a word to describe the competitive advantage gained from sabotaging a competitor, or more generally the advantage gained from dishonesty? An example : Your office receives pamphlets advertising an office cleaning service. Your current office cleaning service steals and hides that pamphlet before an employee at the office can see it. What words can one use to concisely describe the advantage that your current cleaning service has gained? Answer I would call them ill-gotten gains . I believe this could apply to the intangible. Obtained in an evil manner or by dishonest means: ill-gotten gains.

What is the difference between What (the) from How (the) , Who (the) , and other question words so that we can omit not only What but also What the from such sentences as (What the) frick/hell/fuck are you doing?' but not How (the) from How the frick/hell/fuck are you doing? and not When (the) or Why (the) from When/Why the fuck are you doing that? Attestation to the omission of What and What the is easy to find. The hell (The fuck) are you doing? 1 Cf The fuck are you talking about? in The Fuse , #8: and Hell/Fuck are you doing? 2 But I as a native speaker I judge that removing How the and who the from the corresponding questions cannot be done without those sentences becoming ungrammatical. In other words (The) fuck are you doing? can stand for What the fuck are you doing? but not How the fuck are you doing? Who the fuck are you doing? In addition, it seems to me When and where cannot be removed from When/where the fuck are you doing that? Nor Why from Why the f...

Which is correct when writing emails? Everything is fine at our/your end . Everything is fine at our/your side . Answer Between those two sets of choices specifically, the first is correct. However, using 'our side'/'your side' isn't the part that's wrong in the second examples, it's the preposition: you can be at an end, but you are on a side. So you could say "Everything is fine on our side."

Mostly emails start with Dear or Hi , I m writing an email to senior and I think I should not use Hi, but even dont want to use Dear as well, it makes me uncomfortable, Is there any other alternative to start an email except Dear/Hi . P.S We dont use words like sir or madam in our office , we are required to take their names. Answer In a business environment, when writing to a colleague or partner, the practice in an "egalitarian tradition" has allowed it appropriate not to have any greeting but addressing the person directly. The form of respect appropriate for this "egalitarian tradition" allows for prefixes such as Mr, Ms, Dr. For example, writing to your senior director, Kelly, I wish to inquire about the status of the new production line, which will be assembling our new design of the product. Dr Hardeep, Tomorrow is the deadline for submission of projects for the next quarter. My dept is aware of your plans to implement the XYZ initiative this coming quarte...

When you are trying to say that something is automatically filled in, you use the word autofill , or if you were using past tense, autofilled . I see 3 main ways that people use it: auto fill / auto filled auto-fill / auto-filled autofill / autofilled Note: this also applies to pre fill , pre-fill , and prefill as well. Which way is the most preferred spelling? Answer There is no grammatical superiority or inferiority to open compounds ( auto fill ), hyphenated compounds ( auto-fill ) or closed compounds ( autofill ). There are forms that are particularly common with particularly common compounds, to the extent that they would be considered preferred spellings. But even then it's common to find two or all three in good use. There are also some compounds of long standing where all three are still often found ( egg beater , egg-beater and eggbeater being an example). There seems to be a general trend over the last few decades toward fewer hyphenated forms, and more closed form...

When adding possessive-S/apostrophe to a list, the rule is only the last person has the apostrophe if the item is shared, or everyone has one if they have the items each, e.g. John and Mary's houses = the houses that belong jointly to John and Mary. John's and Mary's houses = the houses that belong to John and Mary as individuals, at least one each. However, I am curious if the rules are slightly different when possessive pronouns are used for a single item. You and Mary's house OR your and Mary's house ? I'm even more unclear when the first person is involved. Mary and my house OR Mary's and my house ? Finally, when there are at least three people, including the first person, does the last named person have the possessive-S/apostrophe, or all/none of them? John, Mary and my house John, Mary's and my house John's, Mary's and my house I'd be very grateful to anyone able to clarify this, ideally with a some form of reference, as I can't...

I'm not sure if this is something only Americans say, but it has confused me for a long time. If someone is asked a question why do some people respond with something like, "No, yes it was"? What does "no" at the beginning mean? It seems like a contradiction. For example: I'm not sure if I answered your question or not. No, yeah, that makes more sense, now! Answer If you state a negative, and I disagree, I may start with "No" to contradict your statement, and then state the positive. This is related to our general contrariness and bad manners.

The following is from My Fair Lady , where Eliza Doolittle's father, a man of working-class origins, is about to make his appearance. Prof. Higgins and Col. Pickering, our primary interlocutors in this dialogue, sense that Alfred Doolittle is after money for their use of Eliza to settle their little sociolinguistic experiment. HIGGINS [ promptly ] Send the blackguard up. MRS. PEARCE. Oh, very well, sir. [She goes out]. PICKERING. He may not be a blackguard, Higgins. HIGGINS. Nonsense. Of course he's a blackguard. PICKERING. Whether he is or not, I'm afraid we shall have some trouble with him. What is the etymology of this word? Wikitionary , usually extremely handy, informs me that it comes from "black + guard", which is just too thin gruel for my taste. I mean, duh! The question is why are those terms combined to apply to "scoundrels" and "unprincipled persons", as Wikitionary defines it. Can some make the history more detailed for me? Also, w...

In first-language English pronunciation (Australian, British, American, etc., not Indian, Malaysian, etc.) are there any words with the /e/ (or /ɛ/) sound in "bed" /bed/ at the end of a word? As a counter-example "me" is pronounced /miː/. I don't know of any words ending in "e" where it is pronounced /e/; it is usually either /iː/ or silent. If you do know of any words please specify if they're limited to a certain dialect, region or accent. Answer No, there cannot be. Phonemic /e/ at the end of a word in English can only occur as a phonetic falling diphthong [ej], as in say or they . That’s why those have a ‹y› in our spelling today, and why sleigh has an ‹i› in it. And unstressed /ɛ/ will soon enough go the way of all things, despite what bokeh enthusiasts would have you believe. (Same with the meh -sayers.) Because English phonotactics forbid an open /ɛ/ at the end of the word, those will therefore soon enough become either a phonemic sch...

Does an adjunct always modify the noun or can it modify the verb, too? For example: He talked about me [in a hateful way]. I don't think that saying "in a hateful way" modifies him would be true. Also, when there are two adjuncts: He talked about me [in a hateful way] {on the phone}. I think that both "in a hateful way" and "on the phone" modify talk , not him or hateful way ("hateful way on the phone," as a noun phrase, does not make sense). So do these adjuncts modify the verb, or the entire clause? Also, is there any limitation to using consecutive adjuncts? He talked about me in a hateful way on the phone in the office without hesitation. Would you interpret this sentence as "talking in a hateful way and talking on the phone and talking in the office and talking without hesitation" or as "talking in a hateful way which was on the phone that was in the office which was without hesitation"?

I know giving heads up means to inform someone, but how does that relate to the literal meaning i.e. giving heads up? What's the background? Where did it come from? Answer It was first used as an interjection in the 19th century : “They marched, and I amongst them, to face the enemy – heads up – step firm – thus it was – quick time – march!” Then, at the beginning of the 20th century , it began to be used adjectivally , as in: “He was always right on the job, and looking ‘heads up’.” Then, around the late 70s , it became a noun , probably through shortening of phrases like “heads-up alert” into “heads-up”: “It is regarded as being a heads-up on a sale.” Source and references: the Grammarphobia blog

I know that "ever" can be used to express the strengthened negation but would it work like that? I created a session but nobody ever joined. Is it possible? It does not sound right to me. If not, what does this mean? Answer In the example you have given, "ever" serves two purposes. It does act to emphasise the negative as you have suggested. It also adds a temporal dimension to the sentence. If you consider your sentence without "ever" it gives the impression of a one time event: I created a session but nobody joined. Whereas your sentence indicates that this has been happening for a substantial length of time and implies that it is unlikely to change: I created a session but nobody ever joined.

I would like to know if there is an opposite word for sin in English. I mean, how could I say the opposite of I committed a sin other than using a negation? Answer English does not have a precise word for the opposite of sin in the sense you mean, so you'll have to be content with adjectives: the opposite of "I committed a sin" would be "I performed a good/virtuous/righteous/moral/meritorious  act/deed". (Note that the noun forms of these adjectives won't work: goodness has a very wide range of meanings; virtue refers to qualities inhering in a person and carries no connotation of action unlike virtuous act which does, etc.) As you're writing for an Indian audience, the word you have in mind that's already familiar to your audience ( puṇya ) is a perfectly good choice to use. The criterion should not be whether a certain word exists in an English dictionary or not, but whether your audience will understand the word or not. Further thoughts: En...

Shouldn’t Heaven and Hell be capitalized, as they are the names of places? Answer No less an authority than Fulton Sheen had the galleys for his latest book come back from the typesetters with “Heaven” and “Hell” knocked down to lowercase. He carefully re-capitalized each occurrence. When his editor called to request an explanation, he gave what I think we can regard as the definitive answer to Nicholas’s question: Because they’re places. You know, like Scarsdale.

I'm looking for either a single word or phrase that would describe either someone or the action of dismissing someone's opinions as something "socially unpopular", without giving any reasoning why, either just to spite them, because they have a poor counter-argument, have been backed into a corner, or something similar. For example, someone who supports something politically incorrect (like, say, stronger gun control or help for male domestic abuse) might have their views dismissed as racist or sexist or liberal without actually acknowledging and debating against them, thus labeling the former as something they might not be. I was talking to a friend earlier about politics, and she complained about Germany's immigration problem. She said one issue was that many politicians that try to support stronger immigration laws would immediately be shot down as racist or a nazi and forced to resign, instead of being presented with counter-arguments. Regardless of whether yo...

Are there any historical or political reasons for the rather consistent refusal of the International Phonetic Alphabet on the part of American academics? Did Mark Twain's home-made-English-spelling-centred phonetic rendering of regional pronunciations set a trend? Answer I don't know, but here's an interesting quote from Abercrombie's book Fifty years in Phonetics. In America phonetic notation has had a curious history. Bloomfield used IPA notation in his early book An Introduction to the Study of Language , 1914, and in the English edition of his more famous Language , 1935. But since then, a strange hostility has been shown by many American linguists to IPA notation, especially to certain of its symbols. An interesting and significant story was once told by Carl Voegelin during a symposium held in New York in 1952 on the present state of anthropology. He told how, at the beginning of the 1930s, he was being taught phonetics by, as he put it, a "pleasant Dane...

Are there such words as "audiolized" or "audibilized"? EDIT: Merriam-Webster has the word Audibilized indexed with no definition! What I was trying to achieve was to say that something is an audibilized presentation of some other thing , exactly the same way we use visualized presentation . EDIT: This is a visualization of a sort algorithm. Therefore this is ...? Audilization? Auralization? Sound representation? EDIT: This one as well. Answer Just based on the comparable stem, I would expect the term to be to ' auralize '. I suppose the same can be said for 'audibiilze', although 'audiolize' would only seem comparable if the visual word was 'videolize'.

Possible Duplicates: “Backward” versus “backwards” — is there any difference? Afterward versus afterwards — which, and/or when? I have seen both used interchangeably in equivalent contexts. Market is moving upward of 1600... OR should have I used upwards?

I know that in non-rhotic versions of English the /r/ sound is not pronounced - unless the next word begins with a a vowel. So my question is, If a British person says "How are you?" Would "are" be pronounced as /ɑː/ or /ɑːr/. I am asking because I am not sure if "you" begins with a vowel or semi vowel sound and I am not sure if semi-vowels also lead to the "linking r" Answer "How are you" = /haʊɑːjuː/~/haʊɑːju/: "linking r" is not used before semivowels in present-day standard Southern British English. (I don't know if any accent exists or has ever existed that does that.) In general, semivowels in the onset of a syllable are not treated the same as nuclear vowels in English for the purposes of allophony and morpho-phonological rules. Another example is the use of "a" vs "an": the form "an" is used before nuclear vowels, but it is not used before semivowels (/j/ or /w/). Another example of h...

I seem to recall reading somewhere that using a to -infinitive with the actual verb omitted (because it's clear from context) — as in He asked me to go, but I don't want to. (1) — is fine in American but not in British English. Brits, or so the story went, append do : He asked me to go, but I don't want to do. (2) I know that the above is true about American English, my native dialect: we can use (1). My question concerns British English. Googling finds that the above (that (1) is wrong in British English) is not correct in such generality. For example, "can't be arsed to if" has fifteen-odd results, while "can't be arsed to do if" has but one, and it's not in the form of (2). So... Did I imagine the rule I stated above? Or is it restricted to particular sentences (or verbs or something)? Or is it correct as stated but outdated? Or what? Answer I find that this different in use of "do" between British and US English is more commo...

What's the correct way to construct the following structure? adjective + if + adjective Her careful, if paranoid, approach meant that she didn't make any mistakes. Have I put the commas in the correct place?

If schadenfreude means "pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune", is there a word to call someone who can't feel happy when something good/exciting happens to a relative/friend/someone close? Answer The term gluckschmerz in German means "displeasure due to another person's success" which is essentially the opposite of schadenfreude (which is also originally from German). This page discusses both terms.

The word in question is "thraal", a species from the Dr. Who universe ( http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Thraal ) and coincidentally also a species from the Transformers universe ( http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Thraal ). The only similar word I know of is "Baal" and I've heard "bal", "bail" and "bawl" for that as well... so that doesn't help. Any guidance? Answer Not only is the aa unclear from the spelling alone, so is the th . It could be /ðreɪəl/, /ðrɑːl/, /ðrɑːˌɑ/, /ðrɑˌɑ/, /θreɪəl/, /θrɑːl/, /θrɑːˌɑl/ or /θrɑˌɑl/ just going by the received pronunciations of the words Baal , Salaam , aa , the and theme . This is not exhaustive. The association between spelling and pronunciation is a mixture of spellings and pronunciations mutating in semi-separate ways for the last 1000 years, while new borrowings keep being thrown in, with different degrees of Anglicisation, all the while. Since the only source seems to be a novel, it's in fact...

The option of using simple past vs. present perfect in situations like the following has been bothering me for quite some time. I sent you a letter a few days ago; I was wondering if you have received it. I sent you a letter a few days ago; I was wondering if you received it. People use both of them, in most cases I would say interchangeably. I also searched it on google books, which turned out to be used in roughly the same way. I was wondering if someone could shed some light on what the difference between the two was? Which one is used more often and seems more appropriate over the other? Answer To a first approximation both OP's sentences are valid - certainly they both mean exactly the same. But if I'm going to get "picky", I don't much like the first one... ?I sent you a letter a few days ago, I was wondering if you have received it. ...because there's a subtle clash of tense. "I was wondering" refers to my wondering in the past , but ...

I need a way to describe a woman who does not want children. She does not hate them per se, only will not have anything to do with them. A couple of options I have gone through; a no-child female , a contra child headhunter . It is a logline for a story in which her ex-lover dies and leaves her with this unique child, When a unique post-apocalyptic baby is born, a retired _______ becomes its guardian...

Take the following statement: I hate the ease with which X makes disparaging remarks about their rivals without the least concern as to whether they are truthful or fair. Now I would like a word expressing this lack of concern, so that I could just plug it in the blank below and keep the meaning of the sentence above: I hate the _________ with which X makes disparaging remarks about their rivals. This is an all too common attitude and I think it deserves a name of its own. The word that came to my mind was levity , but I haven’t come across this word very often and I’m not sure of its particular tones and shades of meaning. Merriam-Webster defines levity as: Simple definition : a lack of seriousness : an amusing quality Full definition 1 : excessive or unseemly frivolity 2 : lack of steadiness: changeableness The attitude I’m trying to name certainly displays lack of seriousness as to the truthfulness and fairness of the remarks, but I do not want to imply they are made in jest or...