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| bio | website | english.stackexchange.com/… |
|---|---|---|
| location | United Kingdom | |
| age | 59 | |
| visits | member for | 2 years, 5 months |
| seen | 1 hour ago | |
| stats | profile views | 4,666 |
I did my degree in English/French Language/Linguistics back in the '70s, but I only got a middling grade, and I've worked in software development ever since, so I'm really only an expert on English language in the same way any articulate native speaker is.
To save the trouble of repeatedly doing it on individual posts, I'll just say here that I don't come to EL&U looking for arguments. If I come across as contentious that will nearly always be inadvertent carelessness on my part.
Anyway - if you have been, thanks for reading.
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May 14 |
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Homographic pair of two verbs or pair of two nouns? @tchrist: I've no doubt there are many same-POS examples. I'm just making the point that statistically, if both meanings are relatively common, they will tend to be different POS. Where that's not the case, there will be at least some tendency to replace one of the meanings with a different word, if only for the avoidance of ambiguity. |
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May 14 |
answered | Is the expression 'too much, too young' grammatically acceptable? |
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May 14 |
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Can I use the “ll” contraction with proper names? I'm not with you. Clearly native speakers use contractions all the time, as I just did there. Idiomatically, many of us would probably avoid writing Reg's right here, even though we might write Panda's wrong. But that's just because it's meaningless to contract the former (since it would sound identical to the "non-contracted" version). You could consult a relevant style guide to establish whether certain contractions are "acceptable" in certain written contexts, but that's got very little to do with most English usage, which is primarily spoken. |
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May 14 |
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Sun/moon dial on a watch 'I doubt very much that there's a dedicated name for that particular "dial". It's usually just called a Sun and Moon indicator |
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May 14 |
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Can I use the “ll” contraction with proper names? @ Panda Pajama: I have no idea what you mean by "correct". I agree John'll probably wasn't the best choice of proper name because it gets mixed up with John II (king, pope, etc.). But you could easily change it to Jane'll. Nearly all of those are contractions. |
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May 14 |
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Homographic pair of two verbs or pair of two nouns? @ Dog: Verbs: lie *- be horizontally oriented; tell falsehoods. Nouns: bat *flying mammal; sports equipment Most homograph pairs are different parts of speech (i.e. - one is a noun, the other a verb), simply because that takes away most of the pressure to avoid using potentially confusing vocabulary. |
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May 14 |
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Can I use the “ll” contraction with proper names? General Reference |
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May 14 |
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What does “not above” mean? @ AfterLife: I can only speak for myself, but personally I think such basic questions from non-native speakers should be asked on English Language Learners |
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May 14 |
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What does “not above” mean? @ AfterLife: I'm not above saying I consider this question is beneath ELU. |
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May 14 |
reviewed | Approve suggested edit on Term for “utilize for commercialization” |
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May 13 |
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What's the origin of the common phrase “I call shenanigans”? @T.E.D.: Personally, I would never use either "call bullshit" or "call shenanigans". But so far as I'm concerned, "cry foul" is used in both of your contexts, and "call shenanigans" just means the speaker watches South Park (or maybe his friends do). |
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May 13 |
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What's the origin of the common phrase “I call shenanigans”? @T.E.D.: Well, you've put that out there. What do you think the different meanings are? |
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May 13 |
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“Infer” vs. “imply” — can “infer” imply “imply”? possible duplicate of Is it correct that imply:infer::sender:receiver? |
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May 12 |
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Meaning of 'Edwardian geek' @ Dilawar: That may well be so - but so far as I'm concerned, such questions belong on English Language Learners. Which is only in "beta mode" at the moment, so I can't propose migrating this Q in my closevote, but I don't see this as a suitable issue for linguists, etymologists, and (serious) English language enthusiasts, as per the ELU FAQ. |
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May 12 |
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“In a while” vs. “for a while” @ John: Just a wild guess, but might it be that in "haven't seen him for/in years", the "Reference Time" is actually years ago, when he was last seen. And that this in/for distinction only applies when the Reference Time is now or in the future, not in the past? |
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May 12 |
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“In a while” vs. “for a while” According to Google Books estimated results, "haven't seen him for years" is actually somewhat more common than "haven't seen him in years" - but that's a different context, where they must mean the same thing anyway. John concisely summarises the distinction for contexts such as "We'll stop in/for ten minutes" |
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May 12 |
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Meaning of 'Edwardian geek' This is General Reference. Edwardian - of or pertaining to the reign of Edward VII, [geek]() - a computer expert or enthusiast, or a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual. It's in quotes because the word probably didn't exist in Edwardian times (computer geeks as we know them today certainly didn't exist then). |
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May 12 |
reviewed | Reject suggested edit on What does “mother father gentleman” mean? |
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May 11 |
reviewed | Leave Closed “Using” or “by using”? |
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May 11 |
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What are “shrewd turns”? This is Off Topic Lit Crit of archaic text. |
