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I have often heard the following statements when someone talks about shoes, cloths, etc. I don't know which one is more appropriate or grammatically correct. Hey, put your shoes on. Hey, put on your shoes. Take off your coat, please. Take your coat off, please. Any thoughts? Can we also say "take out your coat"?

Had a discussion about the difference of connotation between "You shall" and "You will"; after discussion I became curious about which would be more appropriate in the context below. The Context: There's a man, named John, who is, as a mortal, going to die someday, and another man, an ardent some-pseudo-religion believer, who knocked on John's door to offer the religion of his. However, the fanatic was refused and said "but remember. You will/shall die someday," calmly like a soft breeze. My question is: If the fanatic had said shall , would it have been as if he was implying that John was inevitably going to die, no matter his will would be; that "you'd better believe God"--with some offence hidden under shall? And if he'd said will , would it have been as if he was reminding John of the fact that John was going to die; that "it's the best for you to believe God"--with no offence? And what if the fanatic had been ju...

I have seen both forms in usage. Answer It's correct. Sometimes it sounds fine in both places. Bold if before, italics if after: He quickly put on his shoes and left. He put on his shoes quickly and left. I ate greedily until my stomach literally exploded. I've been in the hospital for a few days trying to get it sewn back together. The use of 'literally' here would sound strange if it were after the verb: "my stomach exploded literally ". That changes the meaning, actually, from one of "it actually exploded" to "it exploded in a fashion related to letters/literature".

Although King George III of Great Britain did respond to a Loyal Address using the personal pronoun I : My Lords, I thank you for this dutiful and affectionate Address. The satisfaction which you express, on the intended marriage of my sister ... [ A Parliamentary History, Hansard, 1765–6] some thirty years later he had progressed to using the Royal We : By the KING, A Proclamation. GEORGE R. Whereas, on the Twenty-ninth Day of this Instant Month of October, divers Persons, riotously assembled in different Places in Our City of Westminster, proceeded to commit certain daring and highly Criminal Outrages, in gross Violation of the Public Peace, to the actual Danger of Our Royal Person, and to the interruption of Our Passage to and from Our Parliament: We therefore, with the Advice of Our Privy Council, in pursuance of an Address from Our Two Houses of Parliament, do hereby enjoin all Magistrates, and all other Our living Subjects, to use their utmost Endeavours to discover and caus...

The Grammarist says I should use rife with rather than ripe with . So far so good and I agree. But is there an exception for ripe with opportunity ? Googlefight overwhelmingly prefers ripe , and I like the imagery of an opportunity tree ripe with fruit. Which is correct: ripe with opportunity or rife with opportunity ? Answer The two words are actually unrelated. Rife appears to be a native Old English word meaning "abundant" or "generous", though it is related to a similar Old Norse word. Ripe on the other hand shares a common Old English ancestry with "reap", with Germanic roots. Obviously the concepts of there being an abundance of something and something being ready to be reaped are related, but the imagery seems to work better for "rife with" than "ripe with". Consider: "The region is rife with opportunities" = "There is an abundance of opportunities in the region." "The region is ripe with opport...

First came John Guare's play Six Degrees of Separation , which was later turned into a film. It was about the web of interconnections that binds all of humanity together. Later came the well known trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon , which does for actors what Guare's creation did for the rest of us. But lately more people understand the idea behind "Six Degrees of Separation" through the Kevin Bacon game. The game has supplanted the inspiration for it. Now, it seems obvious to me (though I could be wrong), that Kevin Bacon was chosen at least in part because his name metrically and phonetically rhymes with "Separation" (at least the vowels do). "Six Degrees of Jack Nicholson" or "Six Degrees of Lord Laurence Olivier" wouldn't have scanned as well (or at all). So here's my question: Is there a term that succinctly represents the transformation of a word or phrase through assonance or rhyme into another word or phrase of simila...

What is the exact context of using this phrase? Is a positive connotation attached to it or a negative one? Answer The common version of this expression is "get into a groove," which means to get used to a routine, to get settled into a comfortable pace doing something, to hit one's stride . It would normally have a positive connotation in American English ("I got into a groove about the middle of the race"), but you could use it to imply that you are unable to get out of the routine, and in British English to " be in a groove " may more often relate to boredom. See these definitions: groove , 3: a fixed routine: to get into a groove. groove , 3: A settled routine: got into the groove of a nine-to-five job. in the groove : Slang - Performing exceptionally well. The expression "get into the groove", on the other hand, can mean to have fun or to get with the times, usually in a positive way. This phrase is probably a bit dated ( 1985 Madonna,...