New answers tagged british-english
1
@Elliot in the comments is correct for "normal" usage, the preposition in is used with "mood", or you can use the adjective moody.
However, recent slang does use "mood" without a preposition. The most common way might be attached to a picture, illustrating said mood, as explained by Daily dot and Slate.
This can also take the ...
2
How early in the morning did you send the e-mail? Perhaps the person who replied would have started it straight away, and guessed that they would have finished it that morning if they had, but they can't start on it until the afternoon, because they have problems to deal with, and they must deal with those problems first.
3
'Acker' in the nineteenth century
Whether acker in the sense of "friend or mate" is Somerset-specific or not, the term probably arose within the past 100 years. William Holloway, A General Dictionary of Provincialisms (1840) has nothing for acker in the relevant sense, nor does James Halliwell, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (1852) or ...
0
The short version is, for the purposes of etymology, "bail" is preferred and "bale" is considered an error. There is a word "bale" but it has quite a different meaning.
(It is worth noting that in “The vessel was holed beneath the waterline and the crew bailed [out].” It is not possible to say if the crew jumped over the side or ...
4
Bail out appears to be more common than bale out in BrE, at the moment at least. Ngram
Up to about 1970, the sources Google uses for this data had bale as more favoured; perhaps the influence of American English became more effective around that time.
The comparatively huge increase in bale out in BrE sources during the Second World War would indicate that ...
0
I’ve lived in England my whole life and would consider “bale” to be incorrect; it’s “bail”.
2
There's a good explanation of the difference here.
In addition to the regional differences among English-speaking nations, it points out that 'specialty' is more commonly used as an adjective; 'speciality' as a noun.
As a native speaker of British English, this is the distinction I make.
0
I actually asked a few people from Somerset and they had never heard it so it's not a well-known word.
Its etymology seems to be very complex and perplexing. I searched quite a few etymology dictionaries but didn't find its origin.
As user121863 says:
The etymology may be simply unknown or lost in time.
I'm not an expert but I'm going to speculate.
It's ...
-2
How bout BrEngish? Or just UKS (pronounced yucks)?! Hah
0
The original derived noun was "brede" from which the broad, not narrow, pronunciation came for broad. "Breadth" took place of "brede" in Middle English. Why the spelling changed to broad is unknown.
0
Perhaps you colleague is using this...
baas noun
South Africa, from Afrikaans, from Dutch
: BOSS, MASTER —used especially by nonwhites when speaking to or about Europeans in positions of authority
Merriam-Webster
0
It's in replacement of the words "man" "bro" "buddy" "pal" "friend" or just a casual way to address another man. Stems from a more slang use of the word boss instead of badass or similar word so has transitioned from a compliment to quite a casual every day name.
He simply means hello armen my friend or ...
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there is a special interest involved: The drug company profits from the experiment it shows that its product is effective.
It seems that there have not been enough corrections: the sentence is still awkward:
= "... there is a special interest involved: The drug company will profit (verb) from the experiment if it (the experiment) shows (demonstrates) ...
1
Your question is ambiguous when you say "the answer indicates 'shows' in bold is not correct." This is ambiguous because you said (one line above) that the original text includes the word "shows."
The drug company profits from the experiment it shows that its product is effective.
This sentence is ungrammatical; it is made of two ...
2
The phrase "healthy risk" is describing the risk itself as being "healthy". Obviously, if the risk were related to an individual's well-being, then the phrase "healthy risk" would be paradoxical and wouldn't make any sense, since a risk is defined as being "a situation involving exposure to danger" (according to the ...
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I've never heard it used, personally. Maybe Mormons say it, but I think most English speakers would understand it much the same way you have - a play on "Negative Nancy".
1
I see the Annotated Mother Goose was published in 1962. In those (pre-decimal) days the yard was familiar to every British reader.
12 inches = 1 foot. 3 feet = 1 yard. An inch is about 2 1/2 centimetres, and a yard is a little under a metre.
The point of a 'yard of ale' is the difficulty of drinking from such an awkwardly-shaped glass, not the exact volume.
0
Advice / Advise, Licence / License are noun / verb pairs in BrE. The c or s endings denote whether the word is a noun or a verb. The reason in BrE why there is no word Defense or Offense is because the action of providing a defence is already taken care of by defend, same with offense" and offend. While one may advise by offering advice, or license a ...
-1
I will not give a comprehensive answer but I offer you some online tools that you may not be aware of.
Google Ngram
Here you see the graph of search for "fag" and "faggot" in British English In it you will notice that "something" is happening around the mid to late 1800s. I haven't investigated. However there is a notable growth ...
answered Jul 19 at 10:53
chasly - reinstate Monica
26.9k1 gold badge37 silver badges79 bronze badges
5
The other answer is correct. They are not allophones. But if you want even more proof, in the form of a minimal pair, the two words tarry /ˈtɑːri/, (to be covered with tar) and tarry /ˈtæri/ (to delay) are a minimal pair, where the difference in these vowels distinguishes the two meanings.
3
No, they are not allophones or in complementary distribution. There are several words with /ɑːɹ/ followed by a vowel. The word "starrer" is pronounced /stɑːɹə/ in British English (Lexico), not */stæɹə/. I'd imagine "sparrer", "starring", "scarring", "charring", "tarring", etc. also have an /ɑːɹ/ ...
0
As in loch. English-born , as opposed to Scottish-born, people can learn to pronounce loch correctly with practice. As with any non native language speaker, sounds outside the native language have to be acquired with practice. Welsh presents the same problem for non native speakers.
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Lieutenant:
Etymology: The word lieutenant derives from French; the lieu meaning "place" as in a position; and tenant meaning "holding" as in "holding a position"
Pronunciation: Pronunciation of lieutenant is generally split between the forms /lɛfˈtɛnənt/ (About this soundlisten) lef-TEN-ənt and /luːˈtɛnənt/ (About this ...
1
I never encounterd ‘in the cards’ in the UK or Ireland. When I first heard it in American films I thought it was a mistake.
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"As" is a filler word and slang and thus can be reformulated with more clear words in all context. Your question thus cant be answered for all cases, because the word itself has no proper definition (since its meaning is relational by history
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=as ).
Take this few examples:
"I want to be as big as a giraffe&...
1
Remember your period after “Mt.”
An adverbial infinitive phrase should begin with “to” then modify a simple verb, then give us a “why”, in one form of usage. It would not need a comma unless it was introducing a main clause.
That is not the way your paragraph reads. I would simply remove the comma after “trinkets”.
If you wanted to use the AIP, you could say,...
1
Both are grammatically correct.
The first has an air of "business-speak" about it, sounding more convoluted than it needs to be. The second is simpler and clearer, which I would personally consider to be a good thing.
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We can parse the meaning like this:
Life is a problem that will be hard to solve (if possible). Life is a problem that will be impossible to solve (if not possible).
Kuldeep Bhimte, in comments
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