"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so." (Sherlock Holmes)

I enjoy embedding puns and subtle self-references into many of my answers and comments.

This question inspired me to create this web page.

Remember, context is everything.

Ready to ask an EL&U question? Don't want to get downvoted? I'd like to offer three nuggets of advice¹:

(a) Want to ask what something means? Don't ask in a vacuum. (In other words, don't pull a phrase out of a sentence, and ask what that phrase means – instead, give the whole sentence, or, better yet, the whole paragraph.)

(b) Giving us a sentence to evaluate? Tell us where you got it from! (Is it from a book? A blog? A respected journal? An instruction sheet? A contemporary source, or something that is centuries old? Such information is often vital to interpreting language and deciphering meaning. Provide a link to the source if you can.)

(c) Do some of your own research first, and then share those findings in your question. Don't ask a question that creates the illusion that you don't know how to use a dictionary.

P.S. Never make the mistake of thinking that a tiny preposition has only one meaning.

¹I like to point out that one user – a non-native speaker, even! – has amassed over 12,000 points simply by following these three basic guidelines. Elaboration can be a beautiful thing.