New answers tagged phrases
1
Simply put: low speed is the more correct one.
English is based on conventional uses. If the majority of English speakers use a certain phrase that is incorrect, over time people get used to it and is then incorporated into the English standard.
"Slow speed" is redundant because slow implies speed, whilst "speed" is the noun being ...
0
From this context, the painting encapsulates the frame of reference. So, the painting is the object, and anything that makes up the details of the object would be "within" the object, in this case the painting.
When you're referring to the details of the painting itself, anything that is within the painting, you would refer to as "in" the ...
1
Use "Light-colored eyes"
As a native (American) English speaker, this would certainly convey "not brown or black". It may also exclude certain dark greens, which I'm not sure if the original Iranian phrase would.
Note that below some of the images are out of context, and appear to be used for comparison to dark eyes. I did not attempt ...
2
self-confidence
lack of self-confidence
self-confident
not self-confident
unsure
unconfident in the Merriam Webster, yes, it's there. No one uses it.
Will you find it in some books on psychology etc. Yes, you might. Is it used in everyday speech like confident? No, it isn't.
0
The word you are looking for is:
diffident
2
Not enough rep to comment, but as a programmer I can confirm Damila's answer is correct, at least in context of the exchange outlined in the question.
In programming and QA, it's helpful to say your problem (or even just your thoughts) out loud, and often this means having some object to "tell your problem to". A rubber duck is the somewhat ...
8
Appropriately, this site grew out of a site for computer programmers (of which I am not one, not even close).
It is a reference to rubber duck debugging
In software engineering, rubber duck debugging is a method of debugging code. The name is a reference to a story in the book The Pragmatic Programmer in which a programmer would carry around a rubber duck ...
0
You all missed the point here.
When the vet puts a pet “down” he doesn’t “put that pet down to sleep”. Neither he puts her “down the floor”.
He just “puts her down”, which means to kindly letting her die instead of suffering further.
Putting “down to sleep” has got nothing to do with putting a pet “down”.
Hope it does make sense.
2
Also possibly "notwithstanding", which is slightly more formal:
Notwithstanding the game's lack of purpose, it's an amazing pastime.
https://www.wordreference.com/definition/notwithstanding
An alternative approach might be to add a concessive to the second clause, perhaps "nevertheless" or "in spite of this"
The game lacks ...
0
How about these options:
Disregarding the fact that the game lacks purpose, I think it's safe to say it's an amazing pastime.
Although the game lacks purpose, I think it's safe to say it's an amazing pastime.
I think one would normally use a simple adversative conjunction like although in examples such as yours.
1
The original phrase was the Latin tabula rasa = an erased slate.
Merriam-webster
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tabula%20rasa
Definition of tabula rasa
1 : the mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before receiving outside impressions
2 : something existing in its original pristine state.
Philosophers have been arguing that ...
7
In the UK we don't have such a word. This is probably true in any English-speaking nation.
In Britain, eyes vary greatly in colour and so we don't consider there to be a standard or "colorless" eye hue. Some people have brown eyes, some people have blue eyes, some have hazel eyes, and so on.
I suggest the word "vivid" to describe eyes of ...
1
The OED gives buggerlugs and bug-a-lugs at the same entry.
Bugger started off as "Bogomil" - a member of a 13th century Bulgarian sect. The sect was heretical and, in order to villianise them, the Catholic Church's propaganda against them accused them of homosexual practices. Bugger then took the meaning of an active homosexual.
In this meaning it ...
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I have commonly heard them referred to simply as a leaker, however I do believe that this leans towards informal speech.
-1
Probably, but you're right - it sounds clunky.
I'd go with "in order to", "so as to" .. or just "to" when possible.
1
I read the sentence "Breaking even is looking super tight" as "The margin of error in order to break even is small". It means that the profits of the business venture are very close to exceeding the costs given the current trajectory, but there is still a chance to break even.
Some other usages where the meaning is similar:
I was ...
0
The three questions at the end are really distinct questions, and need to be answered separately.
A part of the meaning of 'I am growing it into an Afro', in the given context, is that one's current actions (growing one's hair) are carried out with the intention that they produce a certain result (one's hairstyle becoming Afro). Note, however, that (contrary ...
2
Jealous would indeed fit, even if he trusts her.
Possessive could fit.
Proprietorial is also very fitting. Defined as: behaving as if one owned a particular thing or person; possessive.
Depending on the intensity of the emotion, the person may simply be wary.
Jealousy has many meanings, and many people often disagree with each others' meanings. The word has ...
0
It seems to me that a "flight of steps" was once a fresh image, an imaginative conception of someone's passage up a stairway as flying by means of walking: a flight of steps. This wording used to be more common than "flight of stairs," but perhaps as the expression became familiar and lost all force as an image we stopped preferring the ...
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A dictionary should give you the various definitions.
Brewing is that process through which by means of heating up a substance immersed into a liquid that liquid becomes a solution of that substance in the liquid (beer, coffee, tea, etc.); this concept has given rise to the metaphorical definition of the verb "to brew (up)" used only in the ...
1
I can't think of a single word that has both the meaning of "generous" with the connotation of "inappropriateness in being generous".
I'd say "an overly/excessively lenient/indulgent teacher" so as to communicate the idea of excess irrespectively of any notion of evaluation system.
To make clear that from the standpoint of the ...
0
It's a technical document, I would say replace Otherwise with "Or else".
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According to Google Ngram Viewer, data is never in a hard drive, but always on a hard drive.
Comparing data on the hard drive to data in the hard drive, Google shows that (at least in print), on is quite common, but in doesn't exist at all:
This result matches my own impression from my years in IT. Almost nobody ever says that data is in a hard drive.
As ...
-1
"In" and "on" seem both acceptable; I'd choose "in" however as I picture the relationship of data to repository as a containing one where the bits are actually part of the physical structure of the disk. As for "sitting" there is nothing metaphorical about it since it has come to mean "to be in a particular place&...
1
As has already been pointed out on this page, there is nothing really wrong with the where/otherwise pairing, so one doesn't have to change it. But if one is bothered by it, and really wants to avoid otherwise (while keeping where), it may be helpful to note that 'Where you need key-value pairs . . .' means the same as 'in the cases in which you need key-...
1
In sales terms, this is known as an "in". Don't ask me how I know this as I have never been a salesperson.
Example
John: I'm good at closing deals but I have trouble making contacts in the first place.
Mary: What you need is an "in". Try to find something in common and chat about that for a while.
If you Google sales techniques You will ...
1
The person may be trying to waylay you. Lexico has
waylay
VERB
Stop or interrupt (someone) and detain them in conversation or trouble them in some other way.
It is easy to imagine travellers being waylaid here, even now, so imagine what it must have been like in the 17th century..
If there is no motive, the person might be trying to strike up a ...
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"manager/worker" is also a good alternative that's simple and gets the point across.
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"To pull in" is an intransitive phrasal verb. You can just say "Pull in!"
"To pull into" is transitive, you cannot just say "Pull into!", you must pull into something, e.g. "Pull into that car park!"
4
As Merriam-Webster explains, "grind down" is a phrasal verb meaning:
1: to make (something hard) smaller and smoother by gradually rubbing
off tiny bits
The old dog's teeth had been ground down by use.
2: to weaken or destroy (someone or something) gradually
Poverty ground her spirit down.
These people have been ground down by years of ...
1
This is the past tense of the verb to grind (as in grinding grain for flour), used in a metaphorical sense.
2
Real time indicators are events happening in the present, not in a week or a day. They are counted or summed as they occur.
0
Do you want to come with Lucy and me?
because Lucy and me are the object(s) of the sentence.
0
Most likely this wording is used because the writer wants to convey the emotion that these beings, while biologically different from humans, are roughly on par with humans in terms of intelligence and mental faculties. If they were vastly superior or inferior to humans then there wouldn't be nearly as much to write about, and it is often the subtle ...
4
The problem with where is that the customary alternative to where ... is elsewhere .... So if you want to keep where, you're left with two choices:
Use elsewhere, which doesn't work quite as well as otherwise for this metaphorical use of where.
Use otherwise, which isn't that bad an alternative; it may sound slightly wrong to some ears, but judging from the ...
2
As a developer (currently not visible on SO as yet - though that's where I started reading along on Stackexchange back then), I think
there is perfectly nothing wrong here with "where... otherwise".
These are well-established ways of expressing circumstance in a problem (or more exactly, properties) akin to mathematics where "where..." ...
2
I probably exclude myself from the bounty by saying that the question is based upon a misunderstanding and thus that the problem does not exist.
Where you need key-value pairs, use associative arrays. ' / Otherwise, use the simple ones.
You: As I felt, there was something wrong with "where + otherwise" pair, and as FumbleFingers confirmed in the ...
9
I frankly don't understand why otherwise cannot be used along with where.
The online Oxford Dictionary defines otherwise as:
In circumstances different from those present or considered; or else.
Since where in the OP's examples can be easily construed as denoting circumstances (as opposed to places), the use of otherwise along with where is not unnatural ...
1
The Dictionary of the Scots Language has an entry for Argle-Bargle meaning:
(adv.phr.) In disputatious talk.
em.Sc. (a) 1931 J. Ressich in Gsw. Herald (8 Aug.):
And on they gaed, argle-bargle, an' the crood got bigger an' bigger.
as for fargle, the following site suggest it refers to a game:
fargling is any game which is used to resolve a dispute ...
1
Old question. But I found this because I was just thinking of this and searched the question.
I do believe the appropriate equivelent is "If X knew about this, he would grow a grey hair."
1
argle-bargle is Scottish slang
verb argle-bargle (third-person singular simple present argle-bargles, present participle argle-bargling, simple past and past participle
argle-bargled) (slang) To argue.
1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The
Captain Knuckles Under”, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures
of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; ...
1
I'm not familiar with the specific laws involved here but it may be that the government has a right to claim profits that were illegally gained. For example, many states have laws that prevent felons from profiting from the sale of their "story". These laws are contentious since they involve a conflict between the First Amendment and the rights ...
1
It will probably be argued by the "administration" that Hilton's book was made possible only by his government position, and that much of the information in it somehow "belongs" to the government. In that sense they would argue that they are "clawing back" what is theirs. Bolton and his lawyers would very likely disagree.
"...
3
I wouldn't call this an idiomatic expression, but I've heard that phrase never again eat alone used to mean this person is so popular that they can't even eat a meal without people wanting to be with them.
0
Would like to see some established reference
You have given no source and no context - how authoritative do you want it to be?
There is an expression "to dine out on [a story/experience]", thus the implication is that the context described a remarkable experience and that, in the sense of the expression, people would invite him to dinner, etc., in ...
0
In the 19th century, that great grammarian, Humpty-Dumpty, addressed a very similar problem in "Alice in Wonderland". Giving us his illumination on all such problems, he stated "A word means exactly what I want it to mean, nothing more, nothing less."
This understanding was accepted by most grammarians until, it is believed, the early ...
1
The problem is not with the noun/phrase; it is with the preposition.
"Others with the same location", it feels off
It is off. In the commonest contexts, it is "Others in/at/near the same location".
Likewise,
"Others with the same race." should be "Others of the same race."
There are no "rules" in English, ...
0
However long "a few years" is, the effect of the "now" isn't to increase or decrease the amount of time between that past moment and now -- it is merely to indicate that, with the passing of time, that amount has now lengthened to a few years.
2
This is an age-related question.
To a twenty-year-old, a few years would be about 3.
To an eighty-year-old, a few years could be 20 or more.
0
The wording is very common legal use in patent applications, and your example comes from https://patents.google.com/patent/US20040025050A1/en (Something that you should have mentioned.)
OED:
art: 3. As a count noun. a. A practical application of knowledge; (hence) something which can be achieved or understood by the employment of skill and knowledge;
b. A ...
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