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| visits | member for | 1 year, 9 months |
| seen | Apr 25 at 10:42 | |
| stats | profile views | 89 |
I speak UK English with a slight scottish twist
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Nov 23 |
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What's the correct word to use in order to prompt the user to enter the data in a computer app: “Enter” or “Insert”? "Enter" is the standard term both in terms of programming and user experience. |
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Nov 22 |
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How popular is the word “cromulent”? If I use this word in conversation with native speakers, doesn’t it look out of place? My sincerest contrafibularities, Tim |
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Nov 22 |
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Can I use “but” at the beginning of a sentence? Please note that people saying it is possible below are able to provide authoritative references. "People are entitled to their own opinions. They are not entitled to their own facts." |
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Nov 21 |
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What is the word for “making something proper” "Standardize"? "Make compliant"? Tbh, I think the question is so vague only "fix" would work. |
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Nov 20 |
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Do I need to add “to” in every clause in a this sentence? How about this example sentence fragment? "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before." The "to"s are not required but add a certain dramatic emphasis, rhythm and, I think, a suggestion that it's not a prioritized list but are all equal goals. |
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Nov 20 |
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What does “touch off a scramble” mean? Is it an idiom or simple combination of “touch off” and “a scramble”? Scramble may have been more popular after the Battle of Britain as that was the word used for a fast deployment of fighters. RAF pilots would "scramble" their aircraft. |
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Nov 19 |
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Where does the phrase “get a bye” come from? My Concise Oxford dictionary of Etymology makes some rather ambiguous reference to "secondary" events in sports but my google-fu is proving weak today. |
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Nov 19 |
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Alternate database term for variations in data? How about "anthropocentric presentation format"? ;-) You might want to google "FD:OCA" - for support for using "format". |
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Nov 18 |
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What's the antonym for 'word'? "Noise"? It carries the secondary implication of "signal to noise ratio". |
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Nov 17 |
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Why don't Americans write “devor” instead of “devour”? @Clément - lol! Lost track while trying to remember charmap to get the accent characters. Thanks for the correction. |
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Nov 17 |
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Why don't Americans write “devor” instead of “devour”? @Irene, sorry if I came across snooty, I was in a rush as I had to prepare my daughter's tea. |
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Nov 17 |
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Why don't Americans write “devor” instead of “devour”? @Irene, thank you but I have read on the subject e.g. amazon.co.uk/Story-English-Robert-McCrum/dp/0571275087/… If you follow the bl.uk link above as well you'll find a remarkably concise illustration. BTW the language(s)/dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons is usually referred to as Old English. |
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Nov 17 |
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Why don't Americans write “devor” instead of “devour”? Partly because English inherited via French (dévour) via Old French (dévorer) and the Latin as Raku says. So blame the French! |
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Nov 17 |
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Why don't Americans write “devor” instead of “devour”? For those interested bl.uk/learning/langlit/changlang/across/languagetimeline.html |
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Nov 17 |
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Why don't Americans write “devor” instead of “devour”? I just checked my copy of the "Oxford Encyclopedia of Language" and English is classified as Indo-European -> Germanic -> West-Germanic. |
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Nov 17 |
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Why don't Americans write “devor” instead of “devour”? English is most certainly NOT a Latin-based language, it's Germanic. Yes it has borrowed from Latin and Latin-based languages (and others) but that's very different. |
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Oct 11 |
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“Out of the box” — when should I use this phrase? It's common enough that at least one survey said it was the UKs most hated phrase, maybe I should downvote myself. |
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Oct 6 |
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“Out of the box” — when should I use this phrase? Might be a factor of me always working in big data centers or maybe a US/UK thing? Mind you my 15 years with IBM exposed me to enough US jargon. I hear "off the shelf" a lot as well. |
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Oct 6 |
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A word for 'to exist in the same place as something else' For reason, I suspect maths books from years back, I would say "they are coincident" rather than "they coincide". FWIW. |
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Oct 3 |
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What's a word for the opposite of Accountability? +1 for laissez faire |
