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| bio | website | |
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| location | ||
| age | ||
| visits | member for | 2 years, 3 months |
| seen | 8 hours ago | |
| stats | profile views | 321 |
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May 14 |
comment |
What's the origin of the common phrase “I call shenanigans”? @T.E.D. at least in American English, the referee "calls" a foul (i.e., he acts with authority); any player can "cry" foul (i.e. complain to the ref, or the spectators). When you say you are "calling shenanigans", it certainly sounds to me like you making a purportedly authoritative judgment. |
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May 12 |
comment |
Why do only a few English demonyms indicate gender? "Pinoy/Pinay" --- and "Filipino/Filipina" of course. |
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May 4 |
comment |
What does this sentence mean: “Troubles are poor things to hug. They've got too many prickers.” @SarahHsu -- you might consider the word hug in the context of the phrase tree hugger and then replace the image of a tree with that of a plant with a lot prickers, like a saguaro. |
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May 4 |
answered | What is the students’ jargon or abbreviation to mean a report made up by only putting data downloaded from internet together in English, if it exists? |
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May 1 |
revised |
Rule on absence of the article “the” with plural nouns Richard is the director; brother David is the naturalist. |
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May 1 |
comment |
What is the difference between using “over” and “against” with the word “outrage”? @DragonBuster -- at might suggest more specificity. You are outraged over the crime rate, but outraged at some particular crime. But yes, virtually the same thing. |
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Apr 29 |
comment |
Vehicles stop and people peek out of the window Nope, it's "screech to a halt". I don't know why, but it is. |
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Apr 27 |
comment |
Vehicles stop and people peek out of the window @user43286 - the vehicle/car distinction is a question of technical accuracy versus euphony and fluency. "Stop" is perfectly idiomatic, but you just used in the sense of "cease a specific activity" and a few words later, you're using it again, in a very slightly different sense "cease forward movement". Better to say "screech to a halt" or something evocative like that. And it's my feeling that more people would say "out a window" than "out of a window"; besides, terseness is almost always a virtue. |
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Apr 27 |
answered | Vehicles stop and people peek out of the window |
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Apr 16 |
comment |
What does “strike home” mean? "Home" in this context means the intended target of a weapon. If your opponent's rapier strikes home, he runs you through. |
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Apr 16 |
comment |
Does “salt mines” have any specific meaning? Certainly an interesting answer, but I'd be surprised if a distant Siberian town was the real origin of the English-language phrase, given the existence of (equally brutal) salt mines in (much nearer) Poland and Bulgaria. But there is English.SE content here: the real power behind the Usolye mines was not the Romanov family but the Stroganovs. Yes, those Stroganovs. |
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Apr 14 |
awarded | Good Answer |
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Apr 13 |
awarded | Mortarboard |
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Apr 13 |
awarded | Nice Answer |
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Apr 13 |
answered | Does “salt mines” have any specific meaning? |
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Apr 11 |
comment |
What does “faculties” mean in the context of this Coca Cola ad? @EdwinAshworth -- with a name like "Edwin Ashworth", you should be from Georgia. Don't work here. |
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Apr 11 |
answered | What does “faculties” mean in the context of this Coca Cola ad? |
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Apr 10 |
awarded | Popular Question |
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Apr 9 |
comment |
The meaning of “like fire hardened” @StoneyB -- not "obviously". That's shitty writing when you make a weak metaphor (what would "hardened fire" look like?) and then express it in such an awkward way, it's like a puzzle. |
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Apr 8 |
answered | The meaning of “like fire hardened” |
