Mitch

23,078 reputation

42989

bio	website	http://-
	location	United States
	age	41
visits	member for	2 years, 3 months
	seen	7 hours ago
stats	profile views	1,407

native speaker of American English (AmE)

	23,078 reputation	bio	website	http://-	visits	member for	2 years, 3 months
42989 badges		location	United States		seen	7 hours ago

summary answers questions tags badges favorites bounties reputation activity

5,050 Actions

suggestions reviews revisions comments badges posts accepts all

7h	comment	what sounds idiomatic Those are all good suggestions that work in principle, and I'm sure a thesaurus would offer more. The best would be to actually get some high-school English teachers to answer, but I think they're spending all their time right now reading students' essays and making remarks on them.
7h	comment	Who verbally uses the title “Miss” with a female's first name (regardless of the female's correct title) and why? The question is unclear. Do you want to know the regional variety that does this? Or do you want to know the relation that says this? (boss, employee, someone in lower or higher, very close friends, only relatives, people who are neither friends or relatives, students, what?). Or something else?
7h	revised	Counting stops without ambiguity extra minor explanation.
7h	answered	Counting stops without ambiguity
22h	comment	Would like a specific word that describes a feeling or thought There's a word in German for it.
22h	comment	What does 'trout-shouldered' mean? Sounds Wodehousian. It means 'having shoulders like a trout', which one could infer that it means having weak to nonexistent shoulders, therefore slouching and ineffectual. You know, lacking fortitude or the wherewithal to face a new day with vigor and a jutting jaw, a manly stride, to take on the trials and that what's it, the you know what to trample down the slings and et cetera, et cetera, and a little more too... Also, fish-faced = no chin, ibid.
23h	comment	Is “more optimal” correct grammar? I'd quibble with 'meangless' because certainly it evokes -some- meaning. It is a mathematical solecism but in casual speech 'better than the best' implies that you have a new best. It is not preferred in more formal speech because of the logical problems.
1d	comment	What does this sentence mean: “Cologne, with its seven and seventy evil savors, was a posy-bed to it.”? What is the original language? 'Cologne' is both the name of a big town in Germany -and- a kind of men's perfume (that actually smells nice).
1d	comment	How do you pronounce the Scottish surname Maclaurin? Probably considered too localized/narrow. A single mod closed it really quickly. So maybe you could flag it for reopening.
1d	awarded	Popular Question
2d	comment	Could I use 'this' to introduce a person? "this's" isn't a good contraction in written or spoken English. I've never seen it before.
2d	comment	Adjective following a verb Ask at ELL for better response.
May 15	revised	If , as John Lawler says, orthography is not part of language, how can these commas interfere with today's discussion about gun control? separated examples
May 15	comment	If , as John Lawler says, orthography is not part of language, how can these commas interfere with today's discussion about gun control? @Crystal: yes, I am completely oversimplifying, and you're helping add to my point that punctuation is not a perfect representation of language.
May 15	answered	If , as John Lawler says, orthography is not part of language, how can these commas interfere with today's discussion about gun control?
May 15	comment	Whose window? - What's the idiom for unpredictable unknown beneficial opportunities that might come up? Something like "When a door closes, a window opens" ?
May 15	comment	If , as John Lawler says, orthography is not part of language, how can these commas interfere with today's discussion about gun control? Your title is full of a lot of content itself, so it's hard to know what to choose. What exactly are you interested in, the title question or the technical thing about 'absolute clauses'?
May 15	comment	If , as John Lawler says, orthography is not part of language, how can these commas interfere with today's discussion about gun control? Yes, try this over at ELU. And also, your title question is not the same as the question after "Question is:".
May 14	comment	Homographic pair of two verbs or pair of two nouns? Just look up examples of homographs online. You'll find some pairs that are the same part of speech.
May 14	comment	Can I use the “ll” contraction with proper names? Yes, that contraction is just fine for informal English. Contractions in general are considered bad form in formal written English, but are used unnoticeably in speech. This particular contraction sounds a little more informal, but is also probably not noticed in speech.