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You could reduce it by negating "always": It doesn't always happen. This implies that it happens sometimes, but it emphasises that there are times when it does not happen. The sentence accent wi …

X is causing the dread, and Y is affected by it. The verb means "to fear": X is feared by Y, i.e. Y fears X. If you are dreaded, you cause dread. If you have dread, you dread something dreadful. I kn …

Normally, not to x or anything is followed by a but, like this: Not to generalise, but women often spend too much on shoes they never wear. Here, it is short for [I do/did] not [mean] to general …

continued their rituals without capturing large numbers of enemy soldiers (this one is dubious, because "clause" would be a more specific and thus better name) A great many expressions are also phrases …

A media hog can be either someone who watches or listens to all kinds of media without paying much attention to their content, or someone who likes media exposure just for the sake of it. In your quot …

If you are looking for short or very common phrases, or expressions/idioms, those will be in on-line dictionaries. If the phrase is none of those (then what are they?) … , I doubt whether there is a database with phrases that also contains rephrasings. …

I think you are right; it refers to American support either for Mubarak or his opposition. Her phrasing is a bit odd, but I'd interpret it like this: backing = supporting back = those who want to go …

I am not sure about the details. I can only take an educated guess: Those who are trying to profit from associating themselves with the memory of this often-revered president are describing him in t …

A funny farm is a slang term for a facility for psychiatric patients, a place where they take care of crazy people. They might get drugs there that make them feel happy; that may be why "life is beaut …

This comes from the oriental stories collected in One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights. It is just a well-known example of a very high number, used in various contexts; it alw …

With italicized words or phrases that are pluralized without apostrophe, I believe some would italicize all but the plural s, as you did—but only if the same s could not normally be used to inflect the … This use of a roman s would include the plural s used with acronyms or separate letters and that used with words or phrases where it is not or could not be a part of the word or phrase, e.g. where it could …

How would you say it in Dutch, then? X wordt gemaakt in functie van Y? That doesn't sound right, so you probably mean something else. I'd say X is een functie van Y or the other way around (x=3y is no …

This origin of this ellipsis may have been influences by appositional phrases: Displeased with her lover, Cleopatra shut her bedroom door. — (adjectival apposition) Cleopatra, a fairly competent ruler …

Once for all is now old fashioned, once and for all being standard. The Oxford English Dictionary from ca. thirty years ago says "once for all, now usually once and for all".

The problem is that different people have different definitions of clause and different definitions of phrase. The traditional definition of a clause is "a finite verb and its dependencies". A finite …