phonology - The pronunciation of the word "window"

As you know when the letter w placed at the end of a word, it is pronounced like 'oo' in the words book and could as seen on the chart below.It can be shown as /w/ or /ʊ/ too in dictionaries.

I am not sure but I think it still can be pronounced like 'oo' in the word book even though the letter w placed as the first letter of a word.For example : Watch like ooatch or ʊatch.What do you think?

But when it comes to the word window, can we say the first letter w is pronounced like 'oo' like ooindoo or ʊindoʊ

OR

the first letter w is pronounced like /v/ in the word volcano as seen in the chart? /v/indoo or /v/indoʊ

possessives - When do we use "of" rather than " 's" to show possession?

It is a very simple word but I am quite confused when I write formal documents.
I do not know exactly when to use the of rather than 's. For example:

The value of the mean or The mean's value.

The domains of statistics or The statistics' domains.

The example of data or data's example.

I have searched on Google. Both cases seem widely used on many websites, so I do not know which one is well received by native speakers. Are there guidelines for choosing one over the other?

Answer

My English professor told me that we use of when we are talking about something that is part of or related to another thing. For example, ceiling of my room or subject of the lecture. But 's is used when we are speaking about the ownership relationships and usually related to a person. For example Ali's car or students' room.

But according to my researches, we use of to indicate that one thing is either related to or about something else. On the other hand we use 's to show that two or more things are part of or under the ownership of each other in some ways.

Etymology of 'radius of action'

radius of action

The maximum distance a ship, aircraft, or vehicle can travel away from its base along a given course with normal combat load and return without refueling, allowing for all safety and operating factors.

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/radius+of+action, or

Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, US Department of Defense, 2005, p442

http://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/jp-doctrine/jp1_02(05).pdf

On the other hand, the phrase is also used to mean region of influence of a people or an army in terms of how far they can operate from home and still have a reliable supply line:

It's more of Inner Mongolia even if there was no such geographic concept (IM and OM) at that time, but Genghis Khan and his troops were mostly living and haunting in today Hetao district (in Inner Mongolia), northern Shanxi province and northern Hebei Province. However, you know, during the age of cold arms, a horse is like a tank, the Mongolian warriors had a very long radius of action, so it's not a problem if they planned to cross over the Gobi desert into the outer mongolian steppe/wasteland.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=957924

I am not sure that the latter usage is common in English. It's certainly present in historiography in the Hungarian language. (Apparently, military historian Géza Perjés claimed to have invented it.) My gut feeling is that this must have been first a technical term from military tactics for range and it acquired the strategic meaning only later because that is a more abstract concept.

What is the etymology of the phrase: when was it first used, with which meaning and in what context? Which language invented it first? (Cf. the German Aktionsradius in Duden.)

Oxford Dictionaries put its origin to the late 19th century but that's all I have found:

Origin

Late 19th century; earliest use found in The Times.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/radius_of_action

grammar - Whom and who in the same sentence

I'm struggling to wrap my brain around this and would appreciate some advice please.

Are there situations where it is appropriate to use Who immediately after Whom?

Here's my example from a story I'm writing (the text is from a faux historian)

While one can understand the actions of a lonely few – some of whom
who perhaps did make good their escape...

When I try it with just the whom it sounds wrong. I'm unsure if I'm just getting super confused with tenses here but this is the second time I've tried to word a sentence like this and its annoying me that I can't get it right. Previously I just ended up reworking it to avoid the issue altogether, but I feel it should be possible to construct in this way.

In my head if I was saying this as an aside in conversation right now, I might say:

some of them who perhaps did make good on their escape...

So is it ok to substitute them with whom?

Suggestions gratefully received!

Can a sentence be described as compound (rather than complex) purely based on the placement of the conjunction?

For example:

"Though he was late for class, he walked slowly down the corridor."
This is considered a complex sentence as "Though he was late for class" is a dependent clause.

However, I can change the placement of "though" without altering the meaning or any other parts of the sentence as such:

"He walked slowly down the corridor though he was late for class."
Here, there are two independent clauses ("He walked slowly down the corridor" and "he was late for class") joined by a conjunction.

Is the second version now a compound sentence, rather than a complex one?

grammar - Superlatives and word order

I stumbled upon the sentence below on the Internet and felt confused:

The Alchemist, a novel by Paulo Coelho, which is listed as one of the most read books by successful people says...

Are really "successful people" the ones who read it the most? Like this, it sounds to me as if successful people were the authors of "one of the most successful books," and not the readers.

What's the correct wording?

Answer

Are really "successful people" the ones who read it the most? Like this, it sounds to me as if successful people were the authors of "one of the most successful books," and not the readers.

The actual meaning should be that it is very likely that a successful person read that book.

The incidental phrase preceding which might be confusing, and it could be merged with the relative phrase. One of the most read books could be replaced by one of the books most read. Here's a possible rewording: The Alchemist, a novel by Paulo Coelho which is listed as one of the books most read by successful people, says...

grammar - Is it: My apples and orange are/is wrong?

Simple question:

My apples and orange are wrong

or

My apples and orange is wrong

I am not a native English speaker, and I am having some trouble choosing between plural are or singular is for that kind of example.

Answer

It's hard to conceive of a situation in which apples and oranges could be wrong, but let's suppose there is.

Assuming you really mean apples (plural) and orange (singular), the first construction is correct.

My apples and orange are wrong.

You are speaking of multiple things, and even if both were singular

My apple and orange are wrong.

the copula (verb of being) would still be plural.