New answers tagged word-usage
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Is the expression "get shed of" or "get shut of" or "get shot of"?
My paternal grandmother was from Western Kentucky; they moved to Evansville, Indiana during WW2 when my grandfather left coal mining to work in a factory. We visited every summer during the 60s and ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
A dictionary does not define words. A good dictionary should catalogue the current use. A good, big dictionary should include all the different usages, including mathematical or scientific definitions ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
I work more with software specifications than maths, but the problems are similar. The most common problem is with "may not", which is thoroughly ambiguous. Usually the context makes it ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
A similar ambiguous phrase might be...
How many dogs and cats are there?
The sets of 'dogs' and 'cats' do not overlap. Nothing is a 'dog' and a 'cat' at the same time. So if we associate 'and' with ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
I partially agree with Professor West.
cannot - as in "I cannot do " means I am incapable of doing it
but too many people conflate "can" with "may"
"Teacher, can I ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
It's funny, but I happened to run across Professor West's little web page myself just a few weeks ago, soon after I got a copy of his textbook Introduction to Graph Theory. Right now there are just ...
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What is the meaning of 'above' in :" I've always been proud above my station in life'"?
"...the notion.."
I fail to see why a tenable fact, should be anymore whimsical in inception, than what is "always", as a definitive precursor.
There is no notion therefore, unless ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
Thanks to Paul Tanenbaum for alerting me to this discussion. In response to these comments, I have modified this item on my grammar page. It now reads:
It appears that some writers of English now ...
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Should the word "cousin" (without specifying which) be used to denote first cousins only or any "cousin"?
If one wishes to analyse the matters of this kind precisely, one needs to separate the meaning of the words involved from the social conventions that govern the settings in which they are typically ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
As others have pointed out, cannot is ambiguous. My Random House Webster's College Dictionary (2001) lists cannot as an alternative form of can not; i.e., they are synonyms. But my American Heritage ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
This is called an amphibology, an in this case you're describing a first order logic confusion. I'm assuming the math professor has a laundry list of similar terms and phrasing which he finds ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
Can not is ambiguous. Conveniently, it has an alternative spelling cannot which corresponds to the more common of the two possible meanings. It's wrong though to say that this means can not can only ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
Full disclosure, I know Doug West (he’s my Ph.D. advisor’s Ph.D. advisor), so I am probably more inclined to give him credit. But it’s pretty obvious in context that he’s not being curmudgeonly and ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
The good professor is saying that "can not be" is ambiguous.
"X can not be 8" could mean "it is possible for X not to be 8" which then means, by extension, that it is ...
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The usage of "can not" vs. "cannot" in mathematics
EnglishClub has a balanced overview:
People often ask me whether they should write cannot (1 word) or
can not (2 words).
Cannot is a contraction of can not.
In 'British English' cannot is the normal ...
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-5
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Is there a way to determine how offensive a word is?
What I'm looking for is a "word census" to determine how offensive a word is to a given affiliation, zip code, or population overall.
This does not exist nor will an accurate version of it ...
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Does jewel sometimes have a negative meaning?
"Jewelry is a good and prestigious thing"
Only in the eyes of some. To others is is showy, tawdry and often over-used in poor taste. The more jewellery worn, the cheaper and less prestigious ...
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area or area size?
"area size" is not an idiomatic phrase. "area" already refers to the amount of space, adding "size" is redundant.
So "growing in area" is the more correct one ...
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area or area size?
In the US you are likely to hear square footage, meaning area when measured in units of square feet.
You might also hear floor space or floor area to indicate the interior area of a building.
In your ...
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area or area size?
A colloquialism is footprint.
As the attestations show, it is a very common phrase in the context of business expansion, and so anyone who reads about business is not likely to confuse it with "...
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"mid" without a following hyphen in these words?
I agree with these answers; however, I'd like to add "mid back" since I'm in the medical field. This never has a hyphen and is never one word. I get this question all the time. I'm an ...
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Can you use the word alight in this way?
I found this word being used in Singapore pretty frequently to describe leaving a bus or a taxi. However, in the United States, this word is rarely used.
It depends on the audience.
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Accepted
Origin of "home and dry"
Based on the variant "home and dried" and its origin in Australia in the early 20th century, it probably means being home and dried off and comfortable after doing something outside in wet ...
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Does "until now" always imply that the action is finished?
The expression until [present|future|past time] or until [finite-clause]
e.g.
until this very minute
until now
until today
until next Tuesday
until yesterday
until the second half of the 8th century
...
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Does "until now" always imply that the action is finished?
"I didn't receive any answer from the landlord until now."
Until now would generally be used with a perfect tense, which in English emphasises the importance of the result for the present.
...
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Does "until now" always imply that the action is finished?
For me, it means up to this point there has been no known change of circumstances or behaviour.
One cannot say otherwise unless more context/information is provided.
However, if you start with a ...
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Does "until now" always imply that the action is finished?
It is definitely a tricky expression for non-natives. The definition found in dictionaries can confuse them more:
UNTIL NOW
used in negative statement to describe a situation that has existed up to ...
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Usage of "coruscating"
Yes, "coruscating" can be used as a one-word adjective to describe something "interesting and exciting" more particularly "sparkling" - from the Latin coruscare, meaning &...
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Can "stagnate" be used as a transitive verb?
It depends. The formal answer is "No." It's not grammatical.
You could say, "I refuse to become stagnant..." Or "I refuse to let myself stagnate through indecision."
But ...
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Can "stagnate" be used as a transitive verb?
Stagnate (v.)
Transitive. To cause to be or become stagnant.
1693 Whence gushed out an Inundation of Water, that is here stagnated, and become a filthy Lake. J. Edwards, Discourse concerning
Old & ...
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Does "until now" always imply that the action is finished?
Until now implies, not so much that the action is finished, but that it has happened at last.
I didn't receive an answer until now/today means that the answer arrived just now/earlier today.
Your ...
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3
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Difference between "wave AT" and "wave TO"
I just wanted to give additional insights to @Heartspring's answer.
According to the third point in the preposition section of Wiktionary's "at" entry:
In the direction of (often in a ...
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Difference between "wave AT" and "wave TO"
After looking through some corpus examples via COCA (and BNC and GloWBe), I would say that the two are mostly equivalent. Just some notes:
For some reason, "wave to" is used more often. (It'...
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Is this the proper use of imbued?
The word imbue is rarely used on its own without a with; Cambridge doesn't even list imbue on its own; they only define the phrasal verb imbue with. MW does list some more obscure senses involving the ...
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Difference between "wave AT" and "wave TO"
For the most part, I believe, they are interchangeable and both choices are idiomatic in most cases.
Personally, I would wave to someone when I'm greeting them and wave at someone when I'm merely ...
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Should the word "cousin" (without specifying which) be used to denote first cousins only or any "cousin"?
I'll try to summarize the answers I got in the comments. If I misunderstood someone, please feel free to let me know.
Ignoring the comments saying that cousin can mean second cousin, because that was ...
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Can parts "comprise" the whole?
From the usage note at AHD:
Usage Note: The traditional rule states that the whole comprises the parts and the parts compose the whole. In strict usage: The Union comprises 50 states. Fifty states ...
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3
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What does it mean to be “cashiered?”
It means to be dismissed from the army in a dishonorable manner - the Wikipedia article (Cashiering) covers the meaning, with historical examples:
A ritual dismissal of an individual from some ...
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What does it mean to be “cashiered?”
Seems like it means someone was dishonorably discharged [Cambridge Dictionary]:
“to officially dismiss (= remove from a job) a person from a military organization, especially making them lose their ...
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Which premodifier is correct: 'ethical' or 'ethics'?
An 'ethics review' tries to measure how closely the ethics in or of any situation measure up to someone's ideals.
An 'ethical review' tries to conduct itself according to someone's ideals, no matter ...
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Give or gift? That is the question
"to give" means to pass something from someone to someone else
"to gift" means to pass ownership to someone without any payment - to (make a) present.
The difference is: if you buy ...
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Accepted
Can I use the phrase 'sororal twins' to describe a set of female twins?
Informally, the term "sororal twins" is used:
To Become a Priest: A Love Storybooks. Den Adler · 2007
Patrick shot her a look. “A sore what?” “Sororal twins. It means
sisterly, like ...
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0
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Accepted
"Keep it unchanged" vs. "Keep it constant" vs. "Keep it unchanging"
Unchanged and unchanging are verbal participles functioning as adjectives; constant is purely adjectival.
The nuances are easier to see when used attributively:
His unchanged attitude was a ...
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"Keep it unchanged" vs. "Keep it constant" vs. "Keep it unchanging"
Keep it unchanged : Don't change anything from now.
Keep it unchanging : Continue to keep it unchanged (lack of change in the past and in the future).
Keep it constant : the adjective would mostly ...
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Which is better: "On first reading" vs. "At first reading"?
EducaLingo gives an explanation of what is almost certainly the sense of 'reading' originally (and often still) involved in the expressions:
What does first reading mean in English?
Reading (...
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Accepted
How often "fat" is used as an abbreviation for fat cattle?
Wiktionary lists this definition for the noun fat:
A beef cattle fattened for sale.
Other dictionaries don't generally list it, so it seems that this usage is rare outside of the industry.
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What disrespectful connotations does "redline" have?
Redlining often, but not always, means illegal discrimination against Black people in American English. This is something you might want to be aware of as a developer. If, for example, you are ...
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What disrespectful connotations does "redline" have?
The term comes originally from residential lending and insurance maps, where different zones would be outlined in different colors, and those deemed highest risk would be outlined in red. People ...
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What disrespectful connotations does "redline" have?
It probably refers to the following context:
Redline:
Context: Redlining refers to the discriminatory practices during the Jim Crow era (1877-1964) that sectioned off particular areas within cities ...
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What disrespectful connotations does "redline" have?
Not so much disrespectful, but loaded: redlining is a legal term that comes with some baggage.
As Cornell explains,
Redlining can be defined as a discriminatory practice that consists of the ...
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