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| bio | website | |
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| age | ||
| visits | member for | 1 year |
| seen | 52 mins ago | |
| stats | profile views | 18 |
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Jul 19 |
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How to pronounce “favicon”? I always have called it fav-ih-con with analogy to rubicon or necronomicon. Both of those are derived from icon, I think, but drop the eye sound |
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Jul 4 |
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Why was the ruler of the British Empire not an Emperor/Empress? but never styles her/his self that way... I suppose that makes sense. It is strange that the British will refer to themselves as the British Empire but not call their monarch an empress officially, but I guess thats just historical. |
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Jun 16 |
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What causes a verb to be infinitive only? Only as a negative unwittingly, which is certainly odd. As in, "He was my unwitting pawn", followed by "No, he was acting quite wittingly." I haven't really seen it used without an unwitting close at hand. |
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Jun 16 |
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What causes a verb to be infinitive only? It is interesting that "unwitting" is still in use, but not "witting". |
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Jun 16 |
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What causes a verb to be infinitive only? @Matt I know that. I was pointing out that if to spite was conjugated in the same way it would be spit or spote. |
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Jun 15 |
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What is the proper term for names typically assigned to people in countries using the first-middle-last format? That only is with respect to order, not with respect to 2-part and 3-part. It doesn't clarify if someone has a middle name. |
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Jun 15 |
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Objects with no name, like “the Sun” @FumbleFingers Earth's moon is most often called Luna in sci-fi. |
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Jun 15 |
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What is the proper term for names typically assigned to people in countries using the first-middle-last format? You can say "they have a middle name" or "they don't have a middle name". Leaving this as a comment, since there could be a good term. |
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Jun 15 |
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What causes a verb to be infinitive only? hm. Wiktionary claims spited is a word. I don't know if I buy that. I can't smited or bited... |
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Jun 15 |
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What causes a verb to be infinitive only? It can be used as a noun of course, but I checked dictionaries. No past tense. I can't imaging that I would spit (to bite), spote (to smite), or spited (to slight) someone. I checked: oxforddictionaries.com/definition/spite and another. |
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Jun 13 |
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How is “æ” supposed to be pronounced? Sort of. I believe that people using that pronunciation are generally aware that it is "wrong" and use the alternate pronunciation for clarity (differentiating between daemon and actual demons). Telling a computer illiterate about a demon would confuse them. A new word, pronounced as daymon, is useful for preventing that. |
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Jun 13 |
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How is “æ” supposed to be pronounced? @tchrist You convinced me. I wasn't buying the answer because I felt that the edge case still wasn't explained; why does Brittanica use the archaic ae but pronounce it as ee. The business logic that they must use the same name to keep the trademark explains the contradiction. Thanks. |
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Jun 13 |
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How is “æ” supposed to be pronounced? When æ appears in writing Modern English, [it] is pronounced the same as that sequence of vowel letters would be. Encyclopædia, encyclopedia, and encyclopaedia are all pronounced the same. I feel like those statements conflict. I wouldn't pronounce ae and e the same way. Is there something I am missing? |
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Jun 13 |
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How is “æ” supposed to be pronounced? Even Encyclopaedia Brittanica pronounces it as a long e sound, in their ads and so on. According to your answer, that is wrong. Is such a major organization, who should clearly understand pronunciation, making an error in their own name? |
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Jun 13 |
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What do you call someone who betrays his/her spouse? It would probably be perfectly acceptable to call someone an adulterer if they were actually convicted of adultery, in the same way it is only permissible to call someone a murderer if they were actually convicted of or had confessed to murder. Many people forget that adultery is actually illegal still, at least it is in my state. Here it is actually on the books at a punishment up to life in prison, though that would never happen in the modern day. |
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Jun 8 |
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“These sort of things”: is it grammatical? (2,670,000 hits on Google) Actually, saying that these sort of was more common is very interesting. Maybe it used to be perfectly natural. It just sounds wrong now. Given that those were more common, archaic may well be more accurate than incorrect. |
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Jun 8 |
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“These sort of things”: is it grammatical? (2,670,000 hits on Google) It isn't incorrect because it violates a grammatical rule, as exceptions to those are common. Its incorrect because it still sounds awkward to the modern ear. If it stops sounding awkward and wrong, then it stops being awkward and wrong. |
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Jun 7 |
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Rewording of “task with the highest stakes” @zooone I personally feel that causation was implied. A mental model is a system designed to find causation and discover patterns. I did drop the proximity of the events, while could easily be added in. |
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Jun 7 |
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How to spell out dollars and cents Interesting, that isn't something I hear. Forty-two thousand dollars exactly would also work. |
