meaning - Can the word "agitate" be used in a positive connotation?

I came across this multiple choice question, and it's bothering me. I want to be sure before i bring it up with my teacher. Question is below:

Replace the underlined word or phrase(i quoted since i cant find the underline option) without changing the basic meaning or cause grammatical error.

This monument image was designed to "stir up" emotions of awe and respect, but could scarcely evoke feelings of warmth and affection.

A)regulate B)agitate C)tangle D)teem

The provided correct answer is A. The provided explanation is that agitate can mean to move or to stir. I'm pretty sure when used with any emotion the word agitate only have negative meanings. can someone confirm or give an example? My only concern is regarding the usage of the word "agitate". The multiple choice dont need to have an answer.

conjugation - What is the noun for the act of zipping?

For some words there is a noun for the act of doing. For example, "deletion" is the act of deleting, "omission" is the act of omitting, "summation" is the act or process of forming a sum. Is there such a word for "zipping"? I'm asking from a programming context, so I'm talking about zipping a file. That may inform the question, since many of these verbs have an object or lack thereof as a result.

Here are a few examples of the types of sentences I'm thinking of:

He had disrupted the class, and the students did not appreciate the disruption.
After a deletion, the program will return to its previous state.
The reformation of the group was mainly due to Sarah's newfound zeal for scrapbooking.

The analogous usage would be "disrupt"->"disruption", "delete"->"deletion", and "reform"->"reformation".

Answer

See compression at techtarget.com, defined as

Compression is a reduction in the number of bits needed to represent data.

It is the word for zipping a file.

time - Is it true that English has no future tense?

I'm a native English speaker and I consider myself to have a very competent understanding of English grammar.

Recently, I have started believing that there is no future tense in English grammar.

Here are some examples of sentences that I previously believed were future tense, but now believe are either present tense or invalid (broken) English grammar:

I will do my homework tomorrow.

I say that this is present tense. The full (uncontracted) sentence is

I (have the/a) will to do my homework tomorrow.

Strictly, this sentence refers to the writer's will in the present. The usage seems to have been contracted in recent centuries, but "will" remains a noun and this seems to be the only grammatically-valid interpretation of this sentence.

I am going to the bathroom.

I say that this is present tense.

The only valid interpretation of this sentence is that the speaker is currently going to the bathroom (in the present, right now). Whether "going to the bathroom" means traveling to a bathroom or peeing in their pants is open to interpretation, but this does not affect the tense. The tense is determined by "am", so the tense is present.

I am going to school tomorrow.

I say this is invalid English grammar.

This is as invalid as I am going to school yesterday. The tense is present because of "am", and the sentence can not be validly interpreted as it stands.

In examples such as

We are going to Italy in Spring,

this is invalid for the same reason as above: "are" determines that the tense is present, and then a non-present time period is appended. This is as invalid as

We are going to Italy two years ago.

These are just a couple of examples but I have looked at many examples of future tense usage and I do not believe there is a valid future tense in English grammar.

Question: Is it true that English has no future tense?

hyphenation - Dictating hyphen or dash over the phone

How should I dictate hyphen in email address or url over the phone ?

My email is gabriel hyphen glenn at gmail dot com

My email is gabriel dash glenn at gmail dot com

Answer

The short answer is: it doesn't matter. The listener will probably type the same thing in either case.

But what's the difference between a hyphen and a dash, anyway?

First of all, there are three lengths of what are all more or less dashes: hyphen (-), en dash (–), and em dash (—) ...

The hyphen connects two things that are intimately related, usually words that function together as a single concept or work together as a joint modifier (e.g., tie-in, toll-free call, two-thirds).

The en dash connects things that are related to each other by distance, as in the May–September issue of a magazine; it’s not a May-September issue, because June, July, and August are also ostensibly included in this range...

The em dash has several uses. It allows, in a manner similar to parentheses, an additional thought to be added within a sentence by sort of breaking away from that sentence—as I’ve done here...Em dashes also substitute for something missing. For example, in a bibliographic list, rather than repeating the same author over and over again, three consecutive em dashes (also known as a 3-em dash) stand in for the author’s name. In interrupted speech, one or two em dashes may be used: “I wasn’t trying to imply——”

https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/HyphensEnDashesEmDashes/faq0002.html

According to this common definition, the punctuation in an email address would probably be a hyphen, since it's used to connect the related parts of the "local-part" of your address. However, email addresses aren't proper English words, and they use symbols in uncommon ways. If a period is the punctuation mark that denotes the end of a sentence, then the . in firstname.lastname is not a period.

So maybe what we really want to know is what's the name of the symbol in the email address.

According to the Internet Engineering Task Force, the "local-part" of an email address can only contain numbers, Roman letters and these additional characters: !#$%&'*+-/=?^_`{|}~ (RFC 2822)

In ASCII (which is the character set that RFC cares about), that symbol is called "hyphen-minus" (because it's meant to represent a hyphen and a minus sign). So if you wanted to be really careful, you could say, "gabriel hyphen-minus glenn," but since most people don't really know ASCII that well, this isn't advisable.

articles - Should I refer to North Koreans and South Koreans "same people" or "the same people"?

Are North Koreans and South Koreans "same people" or "the same people"? Which is correct: the same or just same, and why?

Answer

You would use the definite article there:

North Koreans and South Koreans are the same people.

Edit

Same without the article is often used in a telegraphic style (one that omits extra words for the sake of brevity), such as product orders:

"You requested 52 greeting cards: will ship same within 4 days."

In this case it functions as a demonstrative pronoun, whose antecedent is the cards mentioned. Another way to say that is

"You requested 52 greeting cards: we will ship those to you within 4 days."

It fine to use either, but same in that context is a conventional usage.

grammaticality - Is answering “Hope you had a good time!” with “I did!” correct?

If someone says to me, "Hope you had a good time!" could I then answer "I did!" and it be grammatical?

My first language is French, and I’m wondering if responding that way works in English.

word choice - What's the difference between "licensing" and "licensure?"

On the new Engineering SE, we field questions about professional engineering registration. The tag categorizing these questions is "licensure" and I usually find myself referring to the topic by that word but there are times when I feel like I should use "licensing" instead. I feel like the two words carry slightly different implications but I have trouble identifying the specific way in which they are different.

For example, I much prefer "licensure" here:

This question concerns professional licensure.

but it does not work here:

The Board for Professional Engineers is a licensing body.

and either seems to work here:

The organization deals with professional licensing issues.

The organization deals with issues of professional licensure.

Are these words synonyms? They don't seem to be equivalent in every formulation; how can I decide which is more appropriate for a given sentence?

I don't think this is directly related to the license/licence distinction.

grammar - previously was/had been

So I asked a question that I knew I had asked a long time ago and actually made me think...

"Am I the only one whose program went back to how it previously was or not?"

The aforementioned quotation was my question and I started thinking if it should be "how it previously had been" since there are two actions in the sentence. One of which, "went back to", preceding the other one, meaning one action comes before the other, so perhaps should have put the past perfect tense to use?

Answer

There is not much difference in either expression.

The subtle difference is this:

‘was’ - the system went back to how it ‘was’ - has more of the sense of how the system ‘was’ - ‘in a single moment of time’. For example ‘the system went back to how it was last Wednesday at 3pm’.

‘had been’ - the system went back to ‘how it had been’ - for a continuous length of time - for example “the system went back to ‘how it had been’ in ‘Release 3.1’ - which had been active and installed from April 2016 until July 2018.”

apostrophe - The Jones's, Joneses, or Jones'?

I am calligraphing holiday ornaments. I have been given a list of names. Which is correct when a name ends in an es, "The Jones's, or The Joneses, or The Jones'?"

Also, when it does not end in an es, is it "The Smith's, The Smithes, or The Smiths', or The Smiths ?"

Irregular past tense confusion with compound noun/verb. More examples?

Students of martial arts may be familiar with a breakfall, which can (depending on the situation) be treated as a noun or a verb.

I am often amused when speakers, even native English speakers (myself included!), stumble over the past tense because of the double-irregularity. I've heard breakfalled, breakfell, brokefall, and brokefell - most try one combination or another and then switch to did a breakfall.

I was wondering if people had other examples of this phenomenon, and whether there is a canonically correct past tense form?

EDIT: Prompted by the discussion, for those interested, a breakfall may be defined as any of several ways of 'receiving' a technique, but in Western parlance most often refers to a method of slapping the ground (mat) just at the moment of impact, when you are thrown. This provides a reactive force and lessens the whole body impact if you are unable to roll out. (See uke/ukemi for the Japanese perspective).

Answer

Here's an example of the neologism on-lend (give a loan with money lent from other companies)...

...central bank credit was a major source of finance for banks (on-lended at fixed spreads)...

...which illustrates the general principle that verb nelogisms are normally regular. The established pattern over centuries is that irregular verbs are disappearing; so long as the nelogism is genuinely perceived as a "new" verb (as it probably is with breakfall, on-lend), it's automatically treated as a regular verb by default. So just use breakfalled.

---

EDIT: I should point out there's no definitive authority specifying how any given verb neologism will be conjugated before usage becomes established custom and practice. For example...

Google Books favours troubleshot over troubleshooted by about 7:1. But on Google Internet (which I assume represents more widespread current usage), the bias is only half that. My guess is that as people get more used to troubleshoot as an "independent" verb, they'll increasingly regularise it.

But all "authorities" now seem to agree that for the baseball (ex-)neologism to fly out (to hit a fly ball), the "correct" past tense is flied out (not flew out).

My suggestion for OP to use the regular form is partly based on the fact that I have absolutely no idea what breakfalling is, so I make no close connection between the neologism and the component (verbs?) break and fall. And either or both could be seen as "nouns", which would make me even less inclined to replicate the irregular verb forms.

differences - Why do we write "read" instead of "readed" and pronounce it "red"?

Why do we write read unchanged for present and past, while study changes; we have studied.

The present form of read is read, pronounced as "reed".
The past form of read is also read but it is pronounced as "red".

Is it a regular verb or an irregular verb?

grammar - Marine Corps Possessive

I am editing my brother’s paper, and I realized I am unsure about the possessive form of Marine Corps, such as

The best kept secret of the Marine Corps

Is it

the Marine Corps’ best kept secret

or

the Marine Corp’s best kept secret

I am leaning towards the first because the s is part of the word corps.

Answer

As a Marine myself, I can tell you that "Marine Corp's" is completely wrong.

It is technically correct to use either:

Marine Corps's
or
Marine Corps'

If you look hard enough you will find examples of both, and typically one may be preferred. I have never seen either stated as incorrect; one is either more or less preferred than then other.

I personally would stay away from using "Marine Corps's" not only because of personal preference, but because you will get the occasional mispronunciation as "corpses", which, while it is often a Marine's primary mission to turn an enemy into a corpse, we do not like to hear our name mispronounced as such.

syntactic analysis - What does "travelling at high speed" in "Look out for the car travelling at high speed" function as?

Is there a term used to refer to the following parts of these sentences (in bold):

Look out for the car travelling at high speed.

Catch me coming in hot.

I'm not sure if these can be considered adjectival clauses or if there's a better terminology for it.

Answer

In the first sentence, it functions as an adjective (answering the question which car to look for). It is referred to as a participial phrase.

See:

Purdue

As to whether it is better to call it an adjectival phrase or a participial phrase, I would pick the latter since both its adjectival role and verbal category are specified.

grammar - Conventions for parenthetical inclusion of articles

Somewhat related: "A/An" preceding a parenthetical statement

When writing mathematics, one sometimes wants to write things like

x is not contained in (the closure of) the space Y.

The typical interpretation of this is that the statement holds whether or not the parenthetical statement is read. In this case, x would be contained neither in the space Y nor in the closure of the space Y.

One could also shift the parentheses:

x is not contained in the (closure of the) space Y.

Is there any convention as to which is better writing? I suspect that the first is preferred. It has the advantage that reading the parenthetical phrase does not change the referencing of articles to nouns. Of course, this implies that if the articles were different the second construction would not be an option. The second construction seems quite a bit stranger, but I have seen both in writing and occasionally the second one really did seem better in context.

Is there any strict convention on which should be used, or is it acceptable to choose based on stylistic concerns?

Admittedly I don't know of any context outside of mathematics where one would write a phrase like the ones I have quoted. It may be that this is entirely inappropriate use of parentheses in standard English; if this is the case feel free to close the question.

Answer

I would prefer the first: in this case it seems better for the reader to be left with a preposition to remember than an article.

Here is a more extreme but similar case:

"finding (an integrated version of) a formula "

is better than

"finding an (integrated version of a) formula"

but better still would be to leave out the parentheses altogether.

punctuation - 13 Month Old or 13-Month-Old?

I have just installed Grammarly and it showed up something which i am not sure of.

It corrected '13 month old' to '13-month-old'.

The context is

I ask because my 13-month-old God daughter seemed like she was a little resentful towards another child who was visiting at the same time.

Which would be correct, and why?

pronouns - "Me" or "I" in one-word answers

I've just read a couple of questions concerning the proper usage of the pronouns "I" and "me" in sentences like:

John and I went fishing

It seems clear and obvious to me, that when the pronoun is the subject of the sentence, we should use the subject pronoun.

My question concerns a different context, though. I'm curious as to which pronoun is correct when used in a short, one-word answer? So, when we hear a question like "Who wants to go fishing tomorrow?", should the answer be:

Me!

or

I!

My intuition tells me it should be the former, but I don't really know why.
Is there any underlying rule in English, that dictates which pronoun - subject or object - should be used in the above-mentioned context?

prepositions - "...four others, one of whom responded." Is “whom” correct here? Can I use "who" instead?

I want to shorten this:

I sent emails to four others. One person responded.

Does the following sentence correctly use whom to achieve my goal?

I sent emails to four others, one of whom responded.

Can I use who instead of whom here?

american english - Serial comma in academic papers in mathematics and computer science

1. Is there a predominant style in academic papers in computer science concerning the usage or the omission of the serial comma? What do ACM and IEEE do in general? I failed to find it out on my own.




2. Is there any style guide of an academic publisher that suggests (or prescribes) that US-English papers in the two disciplines (mathematics, computer science) omit the serial comma in general?

hyphenation - Does "cost-benefit ratio" use a hyphen or an en-dash?

Should I write "cost-benefit" (hyphen) or "cost–benefit" (en dash), and why?

Answer

Formally, hyphens are for joining terms, and en dashes are for ranges and distinctions. En dashes have a secondary application joining terms that are already hyphenated or contain spaces, but that doesn't apply here. In this situation I would use an en dash or a slash. Of course, if you do write it with a hyphen, nobody is going to be confused.

Technically, cost–benefit analysis can be interpreted as either [cost–benefit] analysis—an analysis of costs versus benefits—or cost–[benefit analysis]—costs versus an analysis of benefits. Luckily, the latter doesn't make any sense and would really only arise from deliberate pedantic misinterpretation.

etymology - Where does the word "puppet" come from?

Where does the word puppet come from?

Answer

The Online Etymology Dictionary and myEtymology mention:

1520s (implied in puppetry),

• from Old French poupette, dim. of poupée "doll" (13c.),
  
  
  
  • from Vulgar Latin root *puppa,
    
    
    
    • from Latin pupa "girl, doll" (see pupil).
    
    
  
  

Metaphoric extension to "person whose actions are manipulated by another" first recorded 1540s.

More details in this "Word of the day" entry, including about the related word puppy:

In the middle ages lap dogs were also called poupée because they were thought of as playthings—not working dogs.
Poupée morphed to puppy and so with time any little dog began to be called a puppy.

Note: the origin of the word puppeteer is more recent (1915).

hyphenation - Is "UTF-8-encoded" an overuse of hypens? Does "UTF-8 encoded" require a hyphen?

After reading usage of the phrase "UTF-8 encoded" ("UTF-8-encoded) at, for example, stackoverflow.com, in Howto identify UTF-8 encoded strings, and in an excerpt

...every character can be UTF-8 encoded.

from this answer, I began to question whether writing "UTF-8-encoded" is an overuse of hyphens, but a quick read over

Confusion over the general rules governing the use of the hyphen in English

When should compound words be written as one word, with hyphens, or with spaces?

indicates to me that "UTF-8-encoded" is correct usage of hyphens.

Is "UTF-8 encoded", though, correct and not require an additional hyphen? If it it is correct, why isn't the hyphen necessary?

Answer

I think it's something of a matter of personal style, or if writing for publication, the style guide of the intended publication. The name of the coding method is "UTF-8" (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8), so the hyphen between the character "F" and the character "8" is a part of the name. But looking at the first link you provide, the hyphen is not required from case 1 because the two parts, "UTF-8" and "encoded" do not have a combined meaning that differs to any significant degree from the phrase "encoded with UTF-8". It's also not required from case 2, because as pronounced, "8" ends in a consonant, and "encoded" begins with a vowel.

On the other hand, according to your link to question 889, one could argue that there should be a hyphen, but according to that site, only in the exceptional case that the phrase precedes the noun it modifies, as in "UTF-8-encoded document". But it's not clear to me that this exception applies in the absence of the following noun, for example in the construct "The document is UTF-8 encoded." And since this last statement is functionally equivalent to "The document is encoded in UTF-8.", I don't think that the hyphen is necessary. But I don't think a hard and fast rule applies here, and I can conceive of cases where I might see the construct with a hyphen between the "f" and the "8", and between the "8" and the following word might be useful.

idioms - Definite or indefinite article in "the/a devil's advocate"

I can't quite figure out which of the following expressions is more correct:

• He is the devil's advocate.


• He is a devil's advocate.



• He is playing devil's advocate.

The combination of an article with the possessive is what confuses me. Exactly which word(s) does the article apply to?

The first form seems to suggest either that he is an advocate of The Devil -- namely, Satan himself -- or even worse, that he is The Advocate of The Devil. (Kill him with fire!)

The second form seems to suggest that he is an advocate of a devil (but not necessarily of The Devil, nor the only advocate out there.) This seems to fit better with the way this idiom is commonly used, but I haven't seen this idiom used very often with the indefinite article. It's usually used with the definite article.

The third form suggests that he is playing a role named "devil's advocate", with no article attached to it.

Similar examples: The King's speech, the Indian's prayer, the mother's room, etc.

Answer

He is the Devil's advocate.

This is the classical expression. The term was used by the Catholic Church (from 1587 until the office was abolished, in 1983) for the canon lawyer who was supposed to argue against proposals for canonisation, i.e. adding someone to the official list of saints, the canon. The purpose of these arguments against canonisation was to test the strength of the arguments for canonisation as brought forward by God's Advocate.

Syntactically, it is ambiguous whether the modifies Devil or advocate; however, in this case it must modify Devil. That is because the Devil normally requires the definite article if you are referring to the one and only Christian Devil, which is the case here. The definite article can sometimes be left out, but that would be ellipsis; in that case, however, advocate shouldn't have an article either, because Devil requires it while advocate doesn't. Compare the following sentence:

He is Cleopatra's advocate.

He is the Queen's advocate.

Being someone's x usually doesn't require an article before x. Whose advocate is he? The Devil's! It would be odd to add the article where it is normally left out (with advocate) while omitting it where it is normally used (in the Devil).

He is a devil's advocate.

The indefinite article sounds less idiomatic. The article the as above could be left out in casual use; but then it would sound odd to use a phrase almost identical to the full classical expression the Devil's advocate, having merely swapped one article for the other. If you mean to say that a specific person answers to this description, use the; if you were mentioning the general concept of being a devil's advocate, you could very well use a.

He is playing devil's advocate.

Here the article is dropped in a casual manner, and the phrase is used loosely in a slightly changed environment: this is how the phrase is most often used.

conditionals - If I Were You and You Were I

These are song lyrics, so there's poetic license--yes. However, it raises a grammar question that some friends and I have wondered about for years.

Song goes:

If for a moment I were you, and you were me, how would it be?
Would you fall apart as I walk by?
Hang around to catch my eye?
Be jealous of another guy?
If I were you and you were I?

It's the last line: is it wrong? If one can say, "If I were you," why can't he flip that around and write, "If you were I?" Does it have to be "If you were me?" Or is that even correct? "If me were you" certainly isn't right. So why is it correct (if it is correct) to say, "If you were me?"

word choice - Difference between "can" and "may"

Which is correct if I want to request for a pen?

• Can I have your pen please?


• May I have your pen please?

Answer

Can primarily expresses possibility and ability and, secondarily, permission. May expresses primarily possibility and, secondarily, permision and volition. In seeking permission, as in your examples, the use of may is much more formal and polite than can and is used rather less.

However, both 'Can I have your pen please?' and 'May I have your pen please?' are blunt ways of making a request. In practice, a native speaker, at least of British English, is much more likely to say something like 'You don't happen to have a pen I could borrow, do you?'

differences - Past conditional statements

What is the difference between the following two statements?

If I went home for dinner, I took a glass of soft drink.

If I went home for dinner, I would take a glass of soft drink.

Are both of them correct? If not, why can't we use the second one? And if I say: "Would both of them be correct?" instead of "Are both of them correct?", which one would sound more natural?

grammar - Is it correct to use "me" or "I" here?

Thank you for initiating the opportunity for Bob and me to talk.

word order - Why must “has” come before the main verb here?

Wrong Sentence:

Never before in the history of the world such a thing has happened, I don't think that will ever happen again.

Right sentence:

Never Before in the history of the world has such a thing happened, I don't think that will ever happen again.

Why “has such a thing happened” is the right form, and why can't I use such a thing has happened?

Answer

Because never is a negative, so you have the instance of obligatory subject–auxiliary inversion called negative inversion:

In linguistics, negative inversion is one of many types of subject–auxiliary inversion in English. A negation (e.g. not, no, never, nothing, etc.) or a word that implies negation (only, hardly, scarcely) or a phrase containing one of these words precedes the finite auxiliary verb necessitating that the subject and finite verb undergo inversion.

See the rest of both linked articles for more. If you have no auxiliary, you must provide one via do-support:

• Never again did I scratch my eye after cleaning jalapeños.


• Seldom do I invert my statements, except for when the rules require that
  
  one do so.

Inversion is also normal in questions, but you got that one wrong, too. You should have said:

Why is “has such a thing happened” the right form?

Because you need subject–verb inversion in a question. You also need more practice with capitalization and punctuation; otherwise you risk confusing people.

Why isn’t singular ‘they’ used with 3Sg verb forms?

There are many (duplicate) questions about the acceptance, popularity and history of singular they (and their, them and themself) around here, it even got a tag of its own. If I didn’t miss anything, however, the proper verb form hasn’t been questioned yet.

As we all know, English third person singular pronouns (it, she, he and one, +body), names (Alice, Bob, …) and nouns (student, teacher, …) demand the +(e)s suffix be added to the finite verb form in simple present, where some auxiliary verbs have a “special” form (is < *bes / *ares and has < *haves). All other subjects don’t, including plural third person pronoun they.

When the plural you replaced thou (with thee, thy / thine), the other marked verb form that had remained in English – i.e. suffix +(e)st or +t – vanished, too. The first and second persons only ever appear as pronouns (I, we; you), not names or nouns, so there was no strong inclination to keep the verbal inflection.

The second person precedent would suggest that singular they be used with uninflected verb forms which is how it’s usually encountered in the wild. Assuming that they someday replaces he and she (and maybe it) it would lead to disagreement with the words the pronoun stands in for:

1. Alice goes to her place by herself.


2. Bob goes to his place by himself.


3. Alice and Bob go to their place by themselves. – (common)


4. Alice and Bob go to their places by themselves. – (separate)

---

1. She goes to her place by herself.


2. He goes to his place by himself.


3. They go to their place by themselves.


4. They go to their places by themselves.

---

1. They ?goes to their place by themself.


2. ditto


3. They go to their place by themselves.


4. They go to their places by themselves.

---

1. They ?go to their place by ?themselves.


2. ditto


3. They go to their place by themselves.


4. They go to their places by themselves.

So why doesn’t singular they afford s on present-tense verbs like all other third person singular subjects do?

I learned about singular they only long after I had been taught English as a second language in school. That’s why it’s still a conscious decision to use it and hence I could easily adapt to use s forms with it, but would that sound and look funny / strange / wrong to native speakers?

Answer

It is often said that verbs in English inflect to agree with the person and number of the subject. Now person here cannot be construed as an actual property of the subject. We cannot say for example that the first person is the person who's speaking and the second person is the person being spoken to or any ideas like that. If we do not use an actual pronoun to represent the person speaking, then the verb will not inflect in any way to agree with the 'speaker-hood' of the subject.

• *Araucaria am writing this. (wrong)


• *The reader are reading this. (wrong)

In the sentences above, even though Araucaria refers to the person who is currently speaking to you, in other words me, we cannot use a 'first person' form of the verb. Similarly, even though the reader refers to you, the 'listener', we cannot use a second person form of the verb. When we use common nouns we do not see agreement for person.

Although with common nouns, and proper nouns English verbs inflect to agree with number, they do not agree with any other property of the noun, including the relation to speaker or listener or third party. However, verbs do seem to inflect according to which pronoun is being used. In other words pronouns override the normal agreement of verbs with subjects:

• I am writing this


• You are reading this.

The examples above are fine, not because I refers to the person who is speaking, and you are the person reading, but because verbs inflect in accordance with specific pronouns, and these pronouns override the normal agreement that we see with common nouns.

In the Original Poster's question, this issue is disguised, because when verbs agree with third person singular and plural pronouns, they mimic their behaviour with common nouns. However, this is just an illusion. As with the pronouns I, you and we, 'they' also overrides the normal agreement of verbs with common nouns. Whether used with singular or plural meaning, pronouns always dictate the agreement of the verb according to which actual pronoun they are. They always takes a 'third person plural' form of the verb.

This same phenomenon can be seen with the pronoun one. Whether used to reflect first person, second person, or people in general, one always takes the same verb agreement, the one we wrongly describe as 'third person singular'. The same also applies to royal we.

The answer to the Original Poster's question, therefore, is that verbs won't inflect to reflect the singularity of singular they, because although verbs agree with number when they have common noun subjects, using a pronoun as subject will override the normal common noun agreement and cause the verb to agree according to which specific pronoun is being used. It wouldn't be a good idea to use 'third person singular' forms with they, because it would just be ungrammatical. It wouldn't reflect anything about the meaning of they. The agreement of English verbs with pronouns never reflects any semantic property of the pronoun in the first place!

Will the agreement taken by they change in the future? I don't think so, but I don't know, and I don't know anyone who really does!

[Readers who are interested in this question might also be interested in: Why is "be" the only English verb that inflects for grammatical person, not just for grammatical number like all the rest of them? - although it is a slightly strange question!]

grammaticality - "A friend of Susan" vs. "a friend of Susan's"

I'm currently having hot debates with a friend of mine about which one is more natural and more grammatically correct:

• A friend of Susan


• A friend of Susan's

I vote for the first, but I don't have anything to prove I'm right.

Answer

A friend of Susan’s is a double genitive, which has been a feature of English grammar for centuries, and it is the normal alternative to one of Susan’s friends. Just as most people would say a friend of mine, rather than a friend of me, so a friend of Susan’s, rather than a friend of Susan, would be the natural choice in most contexts.

grammatical number - “There’s” or “There are”?

I wanted to get the usage of There’s clarified. I have read sentences like:

There’s a lot of projects on that topic.

It appears to me that There’s applies to a lot of projects, rather than to the projects themselves. Is that right? If that’s the case, is

There’s many students standing there.

not grammatical?

time - Since and for, where can they be omitted?

I’m well aware of the difference between ‘since’ and ‘for’. However I have a question.

Imagine I say ‘I’ve been working on the essay since Saturday’ or ‘I’ve been working on the essay for two days’. (correct right?)

Why would it be incorrect to say ‘I’ve been working on my essay for all weekend’? I would personally omit ‘for’, but why though?

It seems like you can also omit the proposition in other, related cases, like 'I'll see you on Friday night.' Again, why can you do that?

Question about indirect object?

Grammar is driving me crazy.

What would crazy be in this sentence? Is it an indirect object?

Answer

No, not an indirect object (nor a modifier), but an objective predicative complement. Me is the direct object of the verb driving, and the adjective crazy is describing a property that is ascribed of me.

word usage - Proper yes/no answer to a question posed in negative form

Should the question, "Does anyone not understand this?" be answered yes or no, if one does understand?

grammatical number - There is/are one or several apple/~s?

To be clear, among

There is one or several apple.

There are one or several apple.

There is one or several apples.

There are one or several apples.

which is correct?

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My guess:

Because of the shortest distance rule ¹, apples is correct as it is near several.

Though there seems to be near one, the actually object is apples, and thus are should be used.

Thus

There are one or several apples.

is correct.

To make things clearer,

There are one or several apples and a table.

illustrates the long connection between there and apples better.

_{1 Sorry, I do not know its English name. I just translate it from my language back.}

---

By the way, I do not want to emphasize at least one.

Answer

That is not a smooth phrase but of the choices "There are one or several apples" would be most common. See this and this for examples.

"There is at least one apple" would be better.

word choice - What are the grammatical rules for use of "these", "those", and "them"?

I am unclear of the use of [these|those] objects. I am unsure when to use [these|those|them].

Please someone help me tell me which is correct in the previous sentences.

This is not a dupe of What's the difference between "these" and "those"?

Answer

These, those and them may all be used as objects of a sentence or a preposition.

Said when no books are present:

I lost my books. Did you see them?

Said while pointing toward a flock of geese:

I see some geese. Do you see those?

Said while holding a handful of diamonds.

I found some diamonds. Did you see these?

You can also use two of the three as modifiers for nouns:

Did you those geese?

Did you see these diamonds?

But it is ungrammatical to say

Did you see them books?

american english - Pronouncing the final "‑ing" inflection as [əŋ] instead of as [ɪŋ]

I’m asking about American English, but feel free to answer about other dialects.

The ‑ing verbal inflection ending is, in the abstract, a phonemic /ɪŋ/. Those phonemes usually get realized phonetically as literally the sounds [ɪŋ] in General American, and this is the way it seems to be pronounced by most Americans.

Even so, there are many Americans I’ve heard pronounce the ‑ing ending as [əŋ]. You can "spot" that pronunciation if the verb ends with a ‑t like eat. They say eating /ˈitɪŋ/ as one of these instead:

• [ˈiɾɪŋ] with a flap for phonemic /t/, or


• [ˈiʔəŋ] with a glottal stop for the /t/ and a schwa for the /ɪ/, or



• [ˈiʔən] with [n] for phonemic /ŋ/, or


• just plain [ˈiʔn̩] with a syllabic consonant

A comical example

My questions are:

1. How common is that pronunciation?



2. Is it a regional thing? and if so, in which regions?


3. For me, [iʔən] sounds a bit dumb and uneducated* (when Americans say it, but not for English people). Do Americans also share that notion?

* I thought this way even before watching the linked clip, but the clip really made that notion strong for me.

Answer

Yes, I agree with your observations, except that (1) I would identify the second vowel of your [ˈiɾɪŋ] as barred i, a high central-to-back vowel produced by assimilation to the following velar n, and (2) I don't hear a schwa after the glottal stop (so the glottal stop is explained as due to the change of t to glottal stop immediately before a non-fricative consonant). Also, I think that for the variant with flap and barred i, the final velar can readily change to alveolar, which is interpreted as phonemically velar because of its backing influence on the preceding vowel.

grammar - In a story written in past tense, is using present tense grammatically correct in the narration?

For example, just something quickly made up:

Sam started to run from the house to the nearby forest. The freezing weather caused him to shiver, but the warmth from running very rapidly heated up him. Sam, son of a lumberjack, is/was 16-years-old this year.

Given a context like that or similar to that, for the bolded text, which is one is correct? On one hand, "was" seems to be the correct one as the narration is in past tense, so for consistency, everything should be in past. But on the other hand, "is" also seems to be correct because he isn't "was 16-year-old", he is 16-years-old.

Thanks in advance for any answers, and if possible, please point to a resource I can study.

grammar - What's the difference in use between a strikethrough and an epanorthosis?

This question is inspired by comments from this post.

From what I understand, a strikethrough can act as an epanorthosis, but not the other way around. A brief explanation of my perspective is:

An epanorthosis is completely dependent upon the preceding statement, acting as to modify/correct what was just stated. And, it could be that the formerly stated expression was intentionally misspoken (Ex.2).

Ex.1

Yeah, that's fine - no, great!

Ex2.

Yeah, I know of Sigmund Fraud - I mean, Freud.

Conversely, I believe a strikethrough (can) exist completely independent from that of its associated word/phrase. The content of the strikethrough could be directly related to its associated phrase, or, not at all. Also, since the strikethrough comes before its association, the reader is forced to create a second train of thought (in a way, temporarily put that strikethrough in the back of their mind, since they see it's stricken) when going into the upcoming statement(s). And, as the OP of the other post states, people on the Internet use this all the time to introduce comedy, wit, etc.

Ex.1

Earlier today I went to the grocery store and I just realized I forgot pickles saw my best friend from high school.

In that example, although the strikethrough is related to some other element within the sentence, by no means does it make any attempt to modify or correct.

Given all of this, what's the difference (if any) between the usage of a strikethrough and of an epanorthosis? Is my current distinction between the two accurate? Any kind of insight is appreciated.

Answer

I agree with your assessment. As you and Adam suggested, there is some overlap between the way a strikethrough is used and epanorthosis. But I think there are significant differences, so I would not apply the term "epanorthosis" as a general label for the intentional use of the strikethrough, as suggested by comments to the original post referenced.

1) First of all, here are the ways in which epanorthosis is used:

a) To make a legitimate, honest correction or amendment to something that was stated previously. It is obviously used in verbal communication, and is also used in writing when depicting speech or stream of consciousness.

b) To pretend to make a correction for humorous effect or deliberate exaggeration. "Sigmund Fraud--I mean, Freud" is an example of this. So is something like "millions--no, billions!"

A strikethrough can also be used for humorous effect, as in 1b above. However, I would argue that it can't quite be used as in 1a above. Online and in printed documents, if the writer can go back to the text to apply the strikethrough effect, they can also go back and delete it altogether. So no one can claim that they were making a legitimate correction. Nor is a strikethrough a good way to imitate conversation or stream of consciousness, because it inherently implies that the writer is able to either modify what's been said after the fact, or correct it before it happens by setting the font. Obviously neither one is available for spontaneous speech or thought.

A strikethrough can be used for legitimate correction in a written document, when the writer doesn't intend to make a clean copy, but in that case it's really used as editing markup, and thus is not part of the text itself. It's truly not intended to be read, and while someone may still read it, what they're reading is more of a meta-text--traces of the process that led to the final version of the actual text. Online, the strikethrough font can also be used to display document edits, and in this case it's also only part of a meta-text--the documentation of the revisions made in past versions to form the current text. But it's not the same as the deliberate, textual use of the strikethrough. Even the syntax of HTML5 makes this distinction: there is a different tag for the strikethrough effect ("s") and the effect intended for document edits ("del"), even though both are usually rendered by the strikethrough font (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/s).
(But see 1006a's comments below for a more nuanced consideration of interactive sites.)

2) So here are the ways in which a strikethrough can be used:

a) as editing markup, described above.

b) as epanorthosis: as in "Sigmund Fraud Freud," or "millions billions." The type of comedic effect is slightly different here than in the case of a written correction, because the reader is given the "punchline" right away, as you pointed out. The dramatic effect is also lessened for the same reason. But it's still the same general technique.

c) to create an internal monologue/inner voice effect alongside the speaker's 'official' voice, as in your example: "I went to the store and I just realized I forgot pickles saw my friend." You already described in your question the reason why this font is so effective for this effect: "the reader is forced to create a second train of thought."

d) as part of a paralipsis: "Stating and drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over" (http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/P/paralipsis.htm). For example: "Jane is a very dedicated employee and I won't say anything bad about her like the fact that she steals." This example would be a paralipsis even without the strikethrough, but the font emphasizes the effect. Here is an example where the paralipsis relies entirely on the strikethrough: "Jane likes her five-finger employee discount." If the strikethrough wasn't there, the sentence would just be an outright criticism instead of an ironic jab.

c) signaling allofunctional implicature: when a sentence has a different function than the one implied by its grammar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_function#Allofunctional_implicature). For example: "let's take all the artificial ingredients out of twinkies: chemical1, chemical2, chemical3, chemical4, chemical5." Here, by using visual effect, the markup changes the sentence from imperative to declarative ("there is nothing but artificial ingredients"). Another example is "Does anyone like this?" The sentence is changed from interrogative to declarative.

d) as typographic emphasis for something bad or deprecated (anti-emphasis?). For example: "do this, not that."

e) as sarcastic negation: For example: "this is so much fun." The strikethrough negates the statement, but not in the same way as saying "This is not fun."

f) to signal ambivalence or passive-aggressiveness. For example: "I hate you." Obviously if the writer didn't mean it, or truly didn't want it to be known, they would have erased it altogether. But if they mean to be aggressive, why cross it out?

And there may be other uses as well, of which I'm not aware.

So the concept of epanorthosis and strikethrough usage intersect only in cases 1b and 2b above. They are neither equal nor subsets of each other. One of the things that a strikethrough can be used for is one type of epanorthosis.

pronouns - "Who(m) will it be?" vs. "Will it be he/him?"

The accepted (and highly upvoted) answer to the question in the question What’s the rule for using “who” and “whom” correctly? states that the easiest way to find out whether to use who or whom is to try with he/him and see which fits.

But that doesn’t seem to fit very well in this case:

1. Who will it be?




2. Whom will it be?

If I replace with he/him there, it becomes:

3. Will it be he?




4. Will it be him?

– and I don’t know which of these is right, either. Is it really true that you can always associate who with he and whom with him? Or does that not always work? And which out of 3 and 4 is correct?

Answer

Check these out: 'Who' vs 'whom': 1, 'Who' vs 'whom': 2

It is usually "Who will it be?" for the reasons given in the second article.

For your second question, I think "Will it be him?" is better. These definitions may be helpful:

he

pronoun used to refer to a man, boy, or male animal previously
mentioned or easily identified.

"Everyone liked my father—he was the perfect gentleman"

him

pronoun used as the object of a verb or preposition to refer to a male
person or animal previously mentioned or easily identified.

"His wife survived him"

possessives - his and her thing or things?

This might be a duplicate, so kindly excuse me if it turns out to be the case.

Do we say "This is his and her height" ? To me it sounds correct, but since we are talking about two separate heights, does my quoted phrase imply that it is both heights added together? (Nobody ever says that, i know)

For example if I say "His and her lexicon" does it mean the accumulated lexicon of Him + Her or is it treated as a separate one for each? Would you ever under any circumstance say "His and her lexicons?"

Perhaps "His and hers lexicon"?

Also, should I tag this under "grammar" or "grammaticality"?

Thank you!

Answer

"This is his and her height" would only be correct if they had the same height (i.e. 1 height).
In the same way you would not say "this is his and her name" unless they had the same name.

You could makes it "these are his and her heights" (these agreeing with the plural heights).

Or "this is a record of his and her height" or "this is a record of his and her heights" (in either case the 'this' refers to the singular record), since the "this" you are referring to is probably a thing, a piece of paper or a computer file, where the heights are recorded.

grammaticality - Is this grammatically correct? "Martin heard footsteps rushing towards his office."

Is this sentence correct?

"Martin heard footsteps rushing towards his office."

I think something's missing between footsteps and rushing.

By adding were, I believe the sentence becomes grammatically perfect, but while writing novel where authors loves to break rules in order to maintain fluency, the sentence breaks the fluency of the paragraph.
So I wanna keep this sentence as this is in my novel if it's really grammatically correct.

Answer

The use of rushing doesn't seem right to me, because rushing is not something you can hear.

I would use a description that can be heard, which itself implies rushing.

Martin heard footsteps pounding towards his office.

After third person pronouns: verbs with or without “-s”? (special case involving “if”)

I don't know what's going on with me lately. I've never had this question before and it was never an issue for me while writing something but two weeks ago I started to think about whether I should use verbs with or without -s after third person pronouns.

First, let's analyze an example in the first person:

I don't wanna do this, but if I do, would you leave me alone?

In this example, "If I do" isn't in the present tense because I'm not saying I do something, I'm saying I could do.

Now the problem comes. Let's analyze this same sentence in the third person:

She doesn't wanna do this, but if she DO, would you leave her alone?

Again this is not the present tense. I'm saying she could DO and not she DOES.

Another one:

The project she presented was a mess. If she FAIL with another one she'll be fired.

I'm not saying she FAILS, I'm saying she could FAIL.

Do you guys understand what my question is? I don't have problem in using verbs in the present tense like "She works very hard". The problem is when the verb isn't in the present tense and it's preceded by a third person pronoun.

So, which is the correct form? Which of these two variants should I say, and why?

1. The project she presented was a mess. If she FAIL with another one she'll be fired.




2. The project she presented was a mess. If she FAILS with another one she'll be fired.

Answer

TLDR: The if part of present conditionals never takes a subjunctive form in present-day English, only an indicative one. You’re incorrectly trying to apply Portuguese rules for conditionals in English, but English does not work like Portuguese!

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The examples you have presented are not grammatical in present day English because if clauses like the ones you’ve shown take a tensed verb:

The project she presented was a mess. If she *fail with another one she'll be fired.

That is ungrammatical. It needs to be like this:

The project she presented was a mess. If she fails with another one she'll be fired.

In the English of a far more ancient vintage than you will ever casually come across, we did at one point use a present subjunctive inflection there, and later an untensed infinitive, but that was long ago and for the most part far away.

• _{WARNING: To illustrate why this is wrong in a way the original poster can best understand it, I below show contrasting examples of the same sort of conditional in English and Portuguese. I also demonstrate that English has changed in its treatment of these over the best few hundred year, but that Portuguese has not. Lastly, I show that Spanish practice has split off from following the Portuguese practice to following the English one during that same period.}

You seem to be attempting to “calque” Portuguese conditionals into English. Portuguese employs for these a special form which the Portuguese call the futuro do conjuctivo (future conjunctive) and the Brazilians futuro do subjuntivo (future subjunctive). These are not indicative forms in Portuguese the way they are in English and in Spanish:

• EN: If she fails at another project, she’ll be fired. —present indicative



• PT: Se ela falhar em outro projeto, (ela) será demitida. —future subjunctive


• ES: Si (ella) falla en otro proyecto, será despedida. —present indicative

The Portuguese would obviously* read ela falha not ela falhar there if it were in the indicative not the subjunctive, but this is not supposed to be indicative in Portuguese the way it is supposed to be in English. You’re trying to do the same thing in English, calquing the Portuguese conditional forms into English in ways that don’t make sense to native speakers of English. You should use the indicative in English here, just as speakers of your sister language Spanish now also do.

_{* “Obvious” to thee and to me, but probably to few other readers here.}

Of Boys and Bulls: What happens when your raging bull gravely injures your neighbor

Once upon a time when the language was young, English actually did use a “modally marked form” (call it subjunctive if you must) there in its if clauses, but no longer. By way of example, please consider the following Early Modern English from the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible published in 1611. There we read for verse 29 from Exodus 21:

• [KJV] If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit.

That’s what you’re trying to do, but we don’t do that any longer in English. Here’s how that same verse runs in the so-called “King James Version 2000” (KJV2000) translation:

• [KJV2000] If an ox gores a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be clear.

So instead of “if an ox gore” in the Early Modern English, we now say “if an ox gores”. If you try to use the English of 400 years ago, particularly in ordinary conversation, most people will be confused and few will understand you correctly. They’ll think you’re making a mistake — which you would be. It would be just like speaking Portuguese today the way it was spoken back when Camõens wrote Os Lusíadas in the Sixteenth Century. You’d just confuse people.

For cultural comparison, here’s how that verse was translated into the Portuguese of its day by Antônio Pereira de Figueiredo a couple hundred years ago:

• [Pereira] Se hum touro ferir com as suas pontas hum homem, ou huma mulher, e elles morrerem isso, apedrejar-se-ha o touro, e não se lhe comerá a carne; mas o dono o touro será innocente.

Even though that uses the same inflections of its verbs as Modern Portuguese uses, it sure is funny to read and funny to say, isn’t it? The style of speaking and the words chosen have changed considerably as you will see when you compare what you have just now read above with two versions in Modern Portuguese (where the touro has become a boi :) as follows:

• [O Livro] Se um boi escornear um homem ou uma mulher, tirando­lhe a vida, o boi terá de ser apedrejado e não comerá a sua carne. Mas o dono do animal não será culpado de nada.




• [NVI-PT] Se um boi chifrar um homem ou uma mulher, causando-lhe a morte, o boi terá que ser apedrejado até a morte, e a sua carne não poderá ser comida. Mas o dono do boi será absolvido.

So unlike English, Portuguese still uses a subjunctive there just as it did hundreds of years ago. But English does not. The English loss of the subjunctive there parallels the loss of the subjunctive in Spanish over the same period. Here’s how it ran in the Reina-Valera Antigua translation back when Spanish still used the future subjunctive for this sort of if clauses:

• [RVA] Si un buey acorneare hombre ó mujer, y de resultas muriere, el buey será apedreado, y no se comerá su carne; mas el dueño del buey será absuelto.

Even though that old sort of Spanish should be especially easy for Portuguese speakers to read because of its old words and old verb forms, people today no more talk that way in Spanish than they do in English. The Modern Spanish translation in the Castilian NIV runs:

• [CST] Si un toro cornea y mata a un hombre o a una mujer, se matará al toro a pedradas y no se comerá su carne. En tal caso, no se hará responsable al dueño del toro.

---

If as a Portuguese speaker you are going to speak English (or even Spanish) in a way that makes sense to native speakers of those other languages, you must shed your Lusophonic sensibilities about how present conditionals work and use only indicative forms not subjunctive ones in the if parts of these sorts of conditionals.

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Postscript on calques and calquing

When you calque something from one language to another, you translate its original so literally that it risks losing its sense in the new language. Wiktionary says that a calque is:

A word or phrase in a language formed by word-for-word or morpheme-by-morpheme translation of a word in another language.

The Portuguese Wikipedia entry for that word starts out:

Em linguística, e mais precisamente em lexicologia, etimologia e linguística comparada, chama-se calque, calco ou decalque a um procedimento de formação de palavras que consiste em cunhar novos termos mediante a tradução de vocábulos estrangeiros e conforme as estruturas da língua de origem. É um tipo de empréstimo léxico particular, no qual o termo emprestado foi traduzido literalmente de uma língua para a outra, considerando mais a forma do que a ideia.

american english - "jam," "jelly," and "jello" in AmEng vernacular

What exactly is the fruit preserve called "jam" in the U.S.?

Is it what is referred to in France as "confiture"?

If so, then what would be the French for,

• what is called "jelly" in the U.S. ("jam" in the UK)-




• what is called "jello" in the U.S. ("jelly" in the UK)-

In other words, what would the average American commonly call the "confiture" and "gelée" preserves typically found for breakfast in every French hotel?

• "jam" and "jelly"?




• "preserve" and "jelly"?




• "jelly" and "jello"?




• "jelly" and "gelatin"?




• something else?

Fiches pratiques confitures, gelées, marmelades de fruits et produits similaires

Google Pictures confiture de fraises

Google Pictures confiture de groseilles

Google Pictures gelée de fraises

Google Pictures gelée de groseilles

Ngram AmEng 2009

Ngram BrEng 2009

Videos:

Red currant "gelée"

Strawberry "confiture"

jam:

a food made by boiling fruit and sugar to a thick consistency M-W

n (to eat) confiture f

strawberry jam la confiture de fraises Collins English-French Dictionary

In English marmalade refers only to a food made from oranges, lemons, limes, or grapefruit. Don't use it to refer to a similar food made from other fruits, for example blackberries, strawberries, or apricots. A food like this is called jam in British English, and jam or jelly in American English. I bought a jar of raspberry jam. She made us jelly sandwiches. (Collins COBUILD English Usage © HarperCollins Publishers, Ed. 2012)

jelly:

a soft somewhat elastic food product made usually with gelatin or pectin; especially : a fruit product made by boiling sugar and the juice of fruit M-W

n (=dessert) gelée f

→ In the middle of the table stood a large bowl of jelly.

(US) (=jam) confiture f

→ I had two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Collins English-French Dictionary

preserve:

fruit canned or made into jams or jellies or cooked whole or in large pieces in a syrup so as to keep its shape; a jar of strawberry preserve M-W

n (=jam) confiture f

→ Brush top of pudding with apricot preserve or honey.

→ The store cupboard was full of preserves.

→ a plate of butter and a jar of rhubarb preserves.

→ strawberry preserve

a spiced cranberry preserve to go with the turkey de la confiture de canneberges épicée pour aller avec la dinde Collins English-French Dictionary

jello:

Trademark. a brand of dessert made from a mixture of gelatin, sugar, and fruit flavoring, dissolved in hot water and chilled until firm. Random House

n (US) (=jelly) gelée f Collins English-French Dictionary

jello/jelly/gelatin (AmEng/BrEng) WordReference Discussion

gelatin:

an edible jelly made with gelatin M-W

Answer

What exactly is the fruit preserve called "jam" in the U.S?
[my emphasis]

I'm answering the question from the point of view of language, what these words mean to the speakers who use them. Thus, many speakers might call a fruit spread in a dish jam or jelly based on regional preferences rather than on the actual recipe.

Many foods on the American supermarket shelf are not what their labels say they are, so many Americans could not tell you the difference between jam and jelly, only that they tend to use the one or the other word. For many speakers, these words refer to a sweet spread, gelatinous in texture, that seems to be fruit-based (grape, blackberry, blueberry, strawberry, etc) though it may contain no fruit only fruit-juice, or no real fruit product at all, merely some artificial fruit flavoring and coloring.

Jello is a tradename for a rubbery (artificial) fruit-flavored gelatin.

Here's the federal definition per Consumer Reports in a little blurb about the differences, and that's usually a good indication that many people don't know the difference. spreadable fruit and fruit spread are terms without federal definition.

word usage - X being Y versus X is Y

I was recently chastised by my supervisor for describing something as being something else.

The problem:

"Species A has genes X1, X2 and X3, Species B has genes Y1 and Y2. Protein X3 being the homolog of Y1"

I was told that "being" is plain incorrect but I do not understand why, it reads perfectly fine to me.

The proposed revision was:

"Protein X3 is the homolog of Protein Y1"

Why is this more correct?

verb tense in reported speech

1. I told Cindy we would not be able to eat American Chinese food again for a couple of years, once we moved to Shanghai.




2. I told Cindy we would not be able to eat American Chinese food again for a couple of years, once we move to Shanghai.

CONTEXT: We have not moved yet. It will happen in the future. But I am recording a conversation that happened in the past--a few hours ago.

My question is: Should I write "once we moved to Shanghai" or "once we move to Shanghai"?

That is, should I use "moved" (#1) in order to be consistent with the tense in the rest of the sentence?

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Update (16 hours later): When I wrote my question last night I didn't realise that the tense of "will" should be, and in this case can be consistent with the tense of "move". It is true the impossibility of eating American Chinese food (I crave General Tso's chicken) will occur in the future. I feel now more comfortable saying "I told Cindy that we will not..., once we move...".

pronunciation - Are the mid-stressed English words always pronounced the same?

This has been a question in my mind for quite a long time, and I can't help but wonder are all words with stress in their second part pronounced the same all the time? For example, OK, because, etc. I find it a little unusual to say 'That's bi'ka:z' rather than 'That's 'bika:z'. The same is true about 'OK'. Are there any conventions or rules about pronouncing such words? Or are they pronounced always the same way?

P.S. By being pronounced always the same way, I mean, are the words that have stress in the middle (according to dictionaries) always pronounced with stress on the middle part as in because and OK or might they be pronounced with stress on their first part as well?

Answer

No, there is a systematic tendency to move the end stress of words when this avoids two stressed syllables coming next to each other. A typical example is the change from "I love Chinese" to "I love the Chinese language". This is sometimes attributed to a rhythm rule (in The Sound Pattern of English), to alternating stress, or other causes.

There is a large literature on this, for instance Hayes (1984).

grammatical number - Plural form of the acronym LASER

I'm writing a technical report and must use the plural form of LASER. Seeing as it is an acronym, how does one add the 's'?

Answer

The acronym LASER describes a process, not equipment. Modern usage is lasing for the process, and laser has become an ordinary noun. So for multiple devices operating on the LASER principle: "lasers" or "LASERs". Preferably the first, without all caps.

orthography - Is it "front-end", "frontend", or "front end"?

Which is correct?

1. front-end engineering


2. frontend engineering



3. front end engineering

I looked over http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/hyphens.asp, referenced in this answer, and I'm still not sure which to use.

Rule 1 under Hyphens Between Words says:

To check whether a compound noun is two words, one word, or
hyphenated, you may need to look it up in the dictionary. If you can't

find the word in the dictionary, treat the noun as separate words.

"Frontend" is not found at reference.com. "Front-end" and "front end" are both found, which "front end" as two words representing the software term, so I think this must be right. However...

Rule 1 under Hyphens With Prefixes says:

The current trend is to do away with unnecessary hyphens. Therefore,
attach most prefixes and suffixes onto root words without a hyphen.

I think that "frontend" qualifies under this rule. Compare that with "backend" and it sounds to me that "front" and "back" are prefixes to "end".

Also, the most common usage I've noticed is "frontend" as a single word when talking about software. Common usage has to count for something, right?

What's considered the final say here?

Answer

For the compound noun front + end it is front end:

Noun

front end (plural front ends)

1. (computing) that part of a hardware or software system that is closest to the user.

frontend and front-end are alternative forms.

The compound noun front + end + engineering may be another matter.

dashes - Comma vs. em-dash

When is it appropriate to use em dashes instead of commas? I have tried commas in this sentence, but it seems too disjointed:

I'm going to be here at Zep, just up the road from KO near Howell Mill, for a few more weeks, and thought you and Kelly might like to meet somewhere for lunch one day.

Answer

In this instance, em dashes are more appropriate. Em dashes are commonly used as alternatives to parentheses and the location of Zep is definitely parenthetical to the rest of this sentence.

Thus, suitable alternatives might be:

I'm going to be here at Zep (just up the road from KO near Howell Mill) for a few more weeks, and thought you and Kelly might like to meet somewhere for lunch one day.

or

I'm going to be here at Zep—just up the road from KO near Howell Mill—for a few more weeks, and thought you and Kelly might like to meet somewhere for lunch one day.

Personally, I think the em dashes are overkill here; they highlight the parenthetical clause in a way that I don't think is truly necessary, but it's up to you.

grammar - Should "differentiate" be plural in this sentence?

What we know how to do and what we have done differentiate us from others.

or

What we know how to do and what we have done differentiates us from others.

Can anyone explain to me which is correct and why?

punctuation - Do "You know..." Questions need question marks

I'm not quite sure if the type of questions I'm asking about count as indirect questions, so I apologize if that's what I should have put in the title.
Do you need a question mark when you're phrasing something as a question, but it isn't a question? Particularly, questions when, if spoken, would have no upward inflection in your voice at the end. They can either be "you know... right?" or "you do know...?" or even have both. There are three particular types I can think of, so I'll give examples with the three forms of asking I just mentioned. Sorry if this whole jumble of text makes no sense. Anyway, here are the examples.

1. A question that's really an opinion: Someone says something stupid, so you say, "You know you sound like an idiot, right?"


2. A question that's stating the obvious: Someone wants to leave, so you say, "You do know there's a door right there?"


3. A question you know the answer to: Someone is sitting in your chair, and they know it's your chair. They can clearly see there's another chair right next to yours, so you say, "You do know there's another chair right here, right?"

In all of these cases, I either expect no answer, and/or I know the answer. In any (or all) of these situations, should the sentences not end with question marks? Like I said, if you spoke them aloud, you wouldn't have any upward inflection in your voice at the end.

Thanks, and I'm sorry if the format of this post is weird. It's my first time using this website.

EDIT: Ooh, sorry. Just remembered another; I knew I was forgetting something. It's when you know they don't know, basically; you're informing them of something. "You know, that's the fifth time that's happened today?" You're not really asking them if they knew. You're telling them.

orthography - Is there a rule for “‑ance” vs. “‑ence”?

OK, so I’m ashamed to admit that as a native speaker I think I’ve missed something somewhere. I was typing up some documentation and spellchecker kept bugging me. So I looked up some words and found this:

The suffixes ‑ance and ‑ence mean
“quality of” or “state of.” Words
ending in these suffixes are usually
nouns. There is no rule that governs
whether a word ends with
‑ance or ‑ence.

Even the dictionary on my Mac goes so far as to say:

ORIGIN from French ‑ence, from Latin
‑entia, ‑antia (from present participial stems ‑ent‑, ‑ant‑). Since
the 16th cent. many inconsistencies
have occurred in the use of ‑ence and
‑ance.

Is this for real? There really is no rule?

Answer

Yes, this is for real. No, there really is no rule. There used to be a rule in Latin, though. Etymonline explains in more detail:

-ance
suffix attached to verbs to form abstract nouns of process or fact (convergence from converge), or of state or quality (absence from absent); ultimately from L. -antia and -entia, which depended on the vowel in the stem word. As Old French evolved from Latin, these were leveled to -ance, but later French borrowings from Latin (some of them subsequently passed to English) used the appropriate Latin form of the ending, as did words borrowed by English directly from Latin (diligence, absence). English thus inherited a confused mass of words from French and further confused it since c.1500 by restoring -ence selectively in some forms of these words to conform with Latin. Thus dependant, but independence, etc.