texts:
(1) Goal is building cheap SLA printer.
  (2) Goal is to build cheap SLA printer.

Which is correct? And what rule do we need to use?


texts: Is it idiomatic to say "you can throw the ball by swinging your hand from bottom up / from top down" in everyday English?

texts:
There are 2 ways to throw a ball.
-You can throw the ball by swinging your hand from bottom up as the man in red in the picture.
or
-You can throw the ball by swinging your hand from top down as the woman in blue in the picture.
But I am not sure the phrase "to throw the ball  by swinging your hand from bottom up / from top down" expresses accurately the 2 movements in everyday English as shown in the picture?


texts: Is this called "a display stand with a base"?

texts:
Note that: The information on the panel could show menus of a restaurant as the above picture. Or, it could show some instruction that you often see in university or school. Or, people may put some advert on it.
Is this generally called "a display stand with a base" in everyday conversation?


texts: Type 1 conditional for past or Type 2 condition

texts:
Please help me understand the type of sentence below. Is it "Type 1 conditionals for past" or "Type 2"?

  "If we didn't have lectures the next day, we would usually stay up late talking or watching TV"

I read this sentence in Oxford verb and tense book under " Type 0 and  Type 1 conditionals for past".

To me it looks like type 2 condition as it matches type 2 condition structure: If + past tense + would.


texts:
How come people say "I'm friends with sb." rather than "I'm a friend with sb."?

And there are expressions like "He was friends with Jack"...

It's just not grammatical! How can "I" or "he" be "friends"?


texts: How to say that there is a poster located on the wall of my room?

texts:
How to say that there is a poster located on the wall of my room ?

How to say that ?

By the way , Is "on the wall" correct ? what about room , in or on ?


texts: "A matter of typography" vs. "A subject of typography"

texts:
A sentence from a technical manual I'm working on:

Spaces that are a matter of typography rather than punctuation (= spaces that only a typographer knows about), such as a hair space after an opening quotation mark and before a closing one, are removed.

Which word is preferable to use in the above sentence, matter or subject?


texts: what does "From darkness to light" mean in the passage below?

texts:
From darkness to light

The fruits of Lovelocks labours became the ‘Gaia’ theory, which was outlined in a book published in 1979, in which Lovelock makes the analogy between the earth and living organisms. Like our body, which remains at a constant temperature because our organs collaborate with one another, a system is maintained in homeostasis thanks to the activity of its component parts.Lovelock goes as far as to say that our planet is alive, self-regulated by complex positive and negative feedback mechanisms, involving the living as much as the non-living. ‘In the 19th century our world was perceived as a relatively frozen system in which the living fought to adapt. It is only in the 20th century that scientists have gradually become aware of the role of organisms and of their interaction in the configuration of the atmosphere, the oceans and the rocks above ground. Our environment is not an inert structure, but rather a vestigial remnant of our ancestors’ evolution.’

I did not understand what is the light and darkness and why from darkness to light does this mean that his theory was not accepted at first and later on it started to get attention?


texts: The case of only one quotation mark in a sentence

texts:
In some Pali Canon (Digha Nikaya) translated into Englisk books I see the only quotation marks which start in many sentences. There is no closing mark like this.

  'When, monks, a monk understands as they really are the rising and passing away of the six bases of contact, their attraction and peril, and the deliverance from them, he knows that which goes beyond all these views. - Maurice Walshe

  “But when a monk discerns the origination, ending, allure, drawbacks of, & emancipation from the six sense media, he discerns what is higher than all of this. - Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu

Another sentences in which new quotation marks start follow them.

What do those mean?


texts: Some questions about "It has never been easier"

texts:
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/qa/it-has-never-been-easier

I know the phrase of the title means that the thing is now easy.
But,can this writing structure be used for other adjectives?
For example

  I have never been busier.=I'm now busy.

  She has never been more beautiful.= She is now beautiful.

  After the car crash, going to school has never been tougher.=it is now tough.

Is the above understanding right?

Next,when we want to use the sentences like this,is the structure "present tense+comparative" needed?

Finally, what is the difference between the following sentences?

A.It has never been easier.

B.It has been easier.

C.It is easier than before.

D.It is easy now.


texts: How to resolve ambiguous meanings. Especially, "stand" and "stand up". And, are there alternatives?

texts:
1 - How to resolve ambiguity of "stand".
First, my main question is how to resolve and work with the ambiguity of the verb "stand". It's ambiguous in a sense that it can mean both "to be in a standing position" and "to get into a standing position".   For instance, the following are ambiguous:

"Everyone stood when the President came in" (Was everyone already standing before the President came in or did everyone stand only after the President came in?)
"Some people stood for the opening of the guest speaker's speech." (Did the people stand up for the opening of the speech, or did they stand up and remain standing for the duration, or did they simply remain standing for the opening?)

Am I correct in my thinking above?  And how, in general, does one know which meaning is intended, or how does one write such that the meaning is unambiguous?
2 Synonyms for Stand?  And is there ambiguity issues there too?
Secondarily, I'm looking for some choices to describe "being in" or "getting into" a standing position, but I want to be careful about potential ambiguity.  Towards this effort, I have researched and come across the following:

I read that "stand up" can have both of these meanings and it's also thus ambiguous.
Can the phrases "get up" and "get to one's feet" mean both "being in" and "getting into a standing position"?
As I understand it, "rise" is unambiguous, meaning "to get into a standing position" and not "to be in a standing position"
Any other synonyms / phrases I could use?

Am I correct in my research above?  Are there other similar words or phrases that mean either "being in" or "getting into" a standing position that I can use without the inherent ambiguity?

I welcome any kind of clarification of how to deal with this kind of ambiguity: specifically in regards to stand and it's synonyms, or some more general rule that would cover this and other cases.


texts: "smelling of fish" and "fishy"; "it smells of" and "it smells like"

texts:
Can we convert a noun into an adjective by putting "of" before that noun?

People say "she is a woman of great determination", so I think "of determination" plays a role of an adjective and modifies "woman".

Can we do the same for other nouns?

We have "fishy" meaning "smelling of fish".

But how to express the smells of "cake/candy/pee" when we have no equivalent adjectives.

Is it idiomatic "it smells of cake/candy/pee"?

Are they idiomatic and the same "it smells of cake/candy/pee" and "it smells like cake/candy/pee"?


texts:
In the website, http://www.linguisticsgirl.com/the-object-complement-in-english-grammar/, it is said that a noun clause can function as an object complelemt. There are three examples:

The judges will announce the winner whoever brought the red velvet cake.
Most critics consider one theme of the story what you wrote about in your final paragraph.
I declare the problem that you do not want to learn about grammar.

I think in sentence 1, the clause "whoever brought the red velvet cake" serves as object clause, in sentence 2, "what you wrote about in your final paragraph" object clause, and in sentence 3, "that you do not want to learn about grammar" appositive clause.

My explanation is as follows:
In sentence 1, the original word order is "The judges will announce whoever brought the red velvet cake the winner" in which "whoever brought the red velvet cake " serves as the direct object and "the winner" serves as the object complement. Since the object complement is a lot shorter than the direct object, so the word order is changed into "announce the winner whoever brought the red velvet cake" to keep its balance. So the clause "whoever brought the red velvet cake" serves as the object clause rather than object complement clause.

The rule that caused sentence 1 to change word order also applies to sentence 2.

Am I right? I think there is no object complement clause and the noun clause has only four subsets: object clause, subject clause, appositive clause and subject complement clause.


texts:
As part of something that I am writing, I am planning to include the following sentence:

Please reserve your judgment until after reading the entire plan.

But would it be more correct with the alternate form of judgment, 'judgement' so it reads:

Please reserve your judgement until after reading the entire plan.

Based on what I found online, judgment is more commonly used, but judgement is also acceptable. I grew up spelling it 'judgement,' but is it really more correct to say 'judgment'?
Also, as a side note, I am writing in America, so in American English and not British English.


texts: Is there a context in which a native English speaker would use the word "happen" with the preposition "with" and "for"?

texts:
Is it possible to use happen with "with" and "for"? For example, can I say the following?

  I don't know how I pulled it off. It just happened for/with me.


texts: What is a construct like "data found" (vs "found data") called?

texts:
I learned some time ago that in some cases the "characteristic" of an object, like "found" with respect to "data" is put after the object, i.e. if we found some data we should refer to them as "data found" not "found data". Example sentence:

  The findData() function returns the data it finds. To use the data found, one must call useData().

I'd like to read more about this construct, but I'm having a hard time trying to formulate a Google query.

Thus my question, what is this construct called?


texts: Is everything ok (using Present Perfect in the peculiar context)?

texts:
I have a dialogue between two people on translating. I've made up my mind to use Present Perfect ("I've forgotten") but the key says forget. I think that I am right for one simple reason: we have past event, the result having impact on the current situation (speaker hasn't money to buy what they were going to buy); it's some kind of news.

  A: Oh, I've forgotten the money at home.

  B: Don't worry. I'll lend you it.


texts:
The word caret in dictionary pronouce /ˈkærət/

I ususally pronouced wrongly in  /ˈkærit/

From the literal, 'ca' gets related to 'cat'(symbol ^likes a kitty's nose),
How can I  relate 'et' to an easy and reasonable word?


texts: What does “To have had enough to eat would have been to have reached paradise at once.” mean?

texts:
To have had enough to eat would have been to have reached paradise at once.Source: A Dog of Flanders: A Story of Noël, by Ouida

Does this mean if they had had enough to eat, it would be like they had reached paradise at once?


texts: "According to information obtained by the website 'Syrian correspondent' that a meeting…"

texts:
According to information obtained by the website "Syrian correspondent" that a meeting chaired by the head of air force intelligence, Major General "Jameel al-Hassan" on Friday, July 27 and included 33 officers of the intelligence services to explain the mechanism to deal with the next phase after what he called "victories" achieved by the "Arab Syrian Army".

Source: http://nedaa-sy.com/en/news/7626

I would like to ask a native speaker if he/she finds the above clause grammatically OK. I am able to catch the meaning of the clause but its syntax seems to be a little bit odd. Especially the bolded parts are in my opinion confusing. I would rewrite it in this way:

According to information obtained by the website "Syrian correspondent" there was a meeting chaired by the head of air force intelligence, Major General "Jameel al-Hassan" on Friday, July 27 that included 33 officers of the intelligence services to explain the mechanism to deal with the next phase after what he called "victories" achieved by the "Arab Syrian Army".


texts:
I met such an sentence : "All i want is to mess around"
And I was wondering why there is to ? this is the rule or so it should be in English .Just where to appears, and somewhere in such sentences does not .Thanks


texts: present perfect tense vs Present perfect continous tense usage

texts:
1)I have been waiting to do this for a long time.

2)I have waited to do this for a long time.

Which one is correct? If both are correct, what is the difference in meaning between them??


texts: What to look for in language schools to learn especially good english “speaking”?

texts:
I am from a country which does not speak English for daily use. I can understand written english well (except Shakespeare). I can speak and pronounce "some" words very well. I have visited UK for 1 week and I had no important problems during my visit.

Here comes my question: I want to go to a language school or some another courses but I don't know what to look for; I am not looking for a way to extend my vocabulary or grammer. That would be good for sure, but; I "mostly" extend my english "speaking" and "pronunciation". Especially, speaking like anchors. (I am not talking about the abilities and being an anchor. I mean "media language/media pronunciation". I know I have to live in US or UK (I also know they are almost fully different) to extend my understanding of words and pronunciations with my ears, this is not currently what I am looking for.

Even my current question may have lots of grammar mistakes and it may be a mixture of US/UK english.

Maybe I can summarize it like this: I want to learn "beautiful speaking" technics and to do this, I want to understand if there are any language schools for foreigners specialized for "beautiful speaking".


texts: Have you seen Jane this morning? (meaning: this morning)

texts:
I have a question about the present perfect.

  A: Have you seen Jane this morning? (said in the morning)

  B: Yes, I have. I saw her an hour ago.

Here, does "this morning" mean "from the early morning until the present when speaker A was talking?


texts:
I traveled in a truck the back of it the owner had loaded with potatoes.

In this sentence, the book says we have to use 'which' instead of 'it'.
I understand that, but I think there should be 'in' or 'at' at the end of the sentence.

like,

I traveled in a truck the back of it the owner had loaded with potatoes in.

If it isn't, the sentence will be

The owner had loaded with potatoes the back of the truck.

Is the sentence also correct..?


texts:
Imagine a son who wants to work as X in the future (an occupation that seems quite odd to others.)

For this reason, the surrounding people and his friends start to mock him or treat him outrageously in an annoying way!

He decides to consult his father and ask him for his opinion about his goal.
His father finds nothing wrong with that. He wants to ask his son to pursue his dreams and encourage him to go to the way he likes himself regardless of what others say. I was wondering which option below works grammatically and idiomatically natural in my example:

  _________________________. Don't care about what others say.

a. Go your own way.
b. Go to your own way.
c. Go in your own way.

If non of them works in this sense, then I was wondering what should I say?


texts: "Dehydrated Japanese noodles under fluorescent lights" - Chandler from Friends

texts:
From Friends SS1.Ep8 (00:00)

  (Miss) : Hey, gorgeous. How's it going?

  Chandler : Dehydrated Japanese noodles under fluorescent lights. Does
  it get better than this?

What does Chandler mean when he responsed like that?


texts: making announcement about giving up on main meals

texts:
Let's say I am making an announcement to the members of a chess club, at which we gather together every week for having lunch first and then playing chess. I want to inform them that this month there will be no lunches - only tea and snacks. Is "food intake" okay in this case?:

  This month, we will reduce our food intake to just tea and snacks.

Or does it sound too scientific?


texts: Is the "though" unnecessary in this sentence?

texts:
She slammed the door behind her.
  Nice girl. With her gone, though, the air felt a few pounds lighter.

Many people had said that the though is unnecessary. However, this is how I read it: The girl slammed the door (a rough action). She was a nice girl (sarcasm), but I had to admit that the tension dissipated once she was gone.

So the though corresponds to the but. Or maybe I'm mistaken?


texts:
Can you explain to me why it isn't enough to say "had been dammed", but there is also "up" in the phrase. The text is:

  Dr. Howlett turned, straining against his seat belt to talk with Chad and Kate. He had to shout over the engine noise: "Our first stop is right in the middle of a 1976 earthquake area," he said. "I remeber flying over it a few years after the earthquake, and seeing where the vegetation had been stripped from the sides of the mountains, and rivers had been dammed up. To look at it today, you'd never know there had been one of the biggest earthquakes ever in this region."


texts: “We are the citizens of the US” vs. “We are citizens of the US”

texts:
We are citizens of the US.
We are the citizens of the US.

I mostly use #2 when I use sentences like this. According to me, #2 suggests that we are talking about a specific group of citizens that is the citizens of the US; but I am still having a hard time to figure out that where we can use #1. What does #1 suggest? What’s the difference between #1 and #2?


texts: A word to describe a changing amount of segments of text for reading?

texts:
If I have a daily routine of reading:

x pages of a book, or x paragraphs, or x sentences, etc.
Where the x object may change according to the book type (for example, if I read a poetry book, I'll read x poems; or if I read a foreign language book, I'll read x sentences)

What word should I use to generally describe the x items?
I'd like to use that word with counting, for example:

Every day at 20:00, I read my daily 5 <items>

another example:

I was tired and only read 2 out of my 7 <items> today, so tomorrow I'll read 12 <items>

I know I can just replace <items> with the objects I'm reading (pages/paragraphs/sentences), but I wonder if there's a general word for them?
Alternatives I have in mind:

segments
blocks
spreads

In my native language, I'd actually use 2 words that would translate to "reading sections", or "reading segments". Intuitively, that doesn't sound like a good English word choice.


texts: '....has long been...' or '...has been long....'

texts:
OALD's entry's example:

  The company has long been shunned by ethical investors.

I always get confused with word order (unless they are 'adjectives' for what I know the order).

The example is there. Why not '...has been long...'?

As a non-native speaker, I'd be cautious splitting 'has been'. Is it possible to keep those words intact?


texts:
At present, I`ve been doing MBA in Human Resource Management (HRM) at DU

or

At present, I am doing MBA in Human Resource Management (HRM) at DU


texts: Which is correct "a car which" or "a car whose" ?

texts:
Which of the sentence is correct grammatically below?

  I have bought a car which left door is broken.
  I have bought a car whose left door is broken.


texts: Similar? Similarly? which should I use here

texts:
I am having a hard time trying to write this correctly.

"As for procedure A, the controller handles it similar as with procedure B by using function C"

I suppose you understand what I want to say. That the controller handles procedure A and procedure B in a similar way.

But I suspect my grammar is wrong.


texts: "in the event of failure" VS "in the event of a failure"

texts:
In the event of failure, the machine will first react based on the self-diagnostic software.
  In the event of a failure, the machine will first react based on the self-diagnostic software.

Do we need the indefinite article "a" here? And which one should I choose?


texts: Exceptions to the fixed word order in some idiomatic pairs

texts:
As I was taught, the word order in idiomatic pairs is fixed and should be remembered once and for all.  So,  the position of the words in an idiom pair can't be reversed, and you cannot say (and a native speaker would hardly ever do it) for example, "reason and rhyme", "tired and sick" or "baggage and bag".

At the same time, revising idiomatic pairs I came across the "gloom and doom" and "doom and gloom" pairs each of which seems to be valid. This made me think that there may be more (I think there are few if any) such idiomatic pairs a couple of which a literate native speaker might suggest off the top of their head.

May it be that these two pairs are different in their usage (not in general meaning) and they are just two separate idiom pairs, each one being used in a different context? I would think so if the example of the usage were not the same as for the one and so for the other:

  The situation isn't all gloom and doom...

  The situation isn't all doom and gloom...

So what's the ins and outs? Or there really are a few more idiom pairs with non-fixed word order? What are they, if someone can recollect?


texts:
It is from this article. Here it goes:

  While our brave new world has lots of amazing new opportunities and affordances for all of us, we need to always keep in mind that the modern world is deeply mismatched from ancestral human conditions in many important ways. (For more, see, Positive Evolutionary Psychology, by Geher & Wedberg.) And evolutionary mismatch often leads to problems.

Does it mean because?


texts: Is it a right situation to use the phrase?

texts:
"We apologize for any inconvenience you experienced"
Can I use the phrase when I am eager to apologize for an inaccuracy in documents?


texts:
Current user can be hit by an error of faulting request (action) of previous user, i.e. if new user will log on shortly after previous one’s logout while some background work is still ongoing.
This is improbable case. If such inherited error is bound to the previous user, new user can simply restart application. It is slightly offensive but it still communicates an important error to the personnel.
Following my knowledge about general usage of articles I identify definite article for user pointless in sentence … new user can simply restart application. On other hand the same does not apply to user in If such inherited error is bound to the previous user.
I mean I want to point out some specific previous user that among others has some error while new user can be anybody but this new user is know from previous context the same as previous user so it seems to me it makes some kind of undesirable contrast.
What should be there?


texts:
Here is the context:

  Trevor: We've had a villa there for quite a few years. It has come in very handy during the summer holidays. I really look forward to going. I love the way the Spanish make a fuss of my kids. They all come over as such warm friendly people.

  Stephen: Yes, it's true. The only problem for me is that I can't cope with the heat. Last time I went to Spain, it was so hot that I fainted. It took me quite a bit of time to come round. My wife was anxious. She said a bomb could have gone off, and I wouldn't have come to.

  Trevor: Really?......

I just don't understand the sentence in bold text.


texts:
Please tell me which one is more correct "What I want to do is to go there" or "What I want to do is go there".

I'm really confused about this. And I also want to know where to leave out "to" when putting emphasis on verb like this. Thanks in advance.


texts: Verb describing the readying of the hammer of a gun

texts:
Before pulling the trigger, we must ready the gun's hammer, if it has one.

What is the verb describing this action, i.e., the action of rotating the gun's hammer to make it ready?


texts: Construction 'of' the plant vs Construction 'on' the plant

texts:
The following typical sentence uses the preposition of :

  Construction of the plant began in November 1938, and completed by the following summer

But I've discovered some instances when on is used:

  Construction on the plant is expected to begin in late summer, and the
  plant is expected to be open by spring or early summer of 2015.
  (from Jackson Sun)

and

  Construction on the plant started in the late 1970s. (from The Steel Industry of China)

and

  Construction on the Shidao Bay plant began in 2011 but was suspended
  in the wake of the Fukushima crisis, the China Internet Information
  Center said. (from Australia Network News)

Is the use of the on preposition a typo or a mistake?
Or is there some subtle difference in meaning? Could it be a shortening of "construction work on the plant started in..."?

In Russian we may only say "construction of the plant began in..", so I tend to translate such sentences using of only. On seems counterintuitive. To start some operation on something, one has to have that something present in the first place, yet when a new plant construction project is launched, there is no plant present.

"Construction on the plant", when rendered in Russian, would mean adding some facility or building to an already existing plant.


texts: timeout vs. time-out vs. time out in British English

texts: I have a term called time out which refers to the maximum amount of time the program will wait for a response, after which it will close the connection. I do not know how to spell it. There is the choice of timeout as a single word, time out as two words, and time-out. which one is more correct in the British English academic writing style?


texts:
A question about the sentence structure of this:

  In 1997, black bears broke into more than 600 cars in the park, searching for human food as they tore open the doors of Toyotas and Hondas, smashing minivan windows with their paws.

Could it be that an "and" is missing between the "searching for..." clause and "smashing minivan..." clause?


texts: Does this sentence make sense? "I think it no use giving him money."

texts:
There are two sentences.

I think it no use giving him money.
I think it worth watching the movie.

Do the sentences above make sense?
I made these sentences myself.


texts: Which word can replace the word "right" in this context?

texts:
Which clearer word can replace the word "right" in this context?

  "Perpendicular lines: Lines that are at right angles (90°) to each
  other."


texts:
I pity those who lost their money in gambling.
I pity them who lost their money on gambling.

I know the first one is correct, but I think there is nothing wrong grammatically with the second sentence. Am I wrong somewhere?


texts:
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/might says:

MODAL VERB

You use "might" to indicate that something could happen or be true in particular circumstances. (emphasis mine)
a) Your child might do better with a different teacher.
b) (He is) the type of person who might appear in a fashion magazine.
Q1) I think the condition for sentence a) is: "If she had a different teacher." Am I right?
Q2) What is the condition for sentence b)?


texts: Use of "an" for a word not starting with a vowel

texts:
I've encountered this quite a few times now. I'm aware that usually words, starting with a vowel require an "an", words not starting with a vowel are preceded by an "a".

Sometimes words start with a consonant, but when spoken out loud, it sounds like a vowel, for instance an hour.

Is the use of "an" in this case correct due to the sound it would make when spoke out loud?


texts:
I saw this on the news yesterday. It was a video snipped from USA where democrats and republicans were arguing. One of the republicans did the following hand symbol

Does it have a special meaning? I think it looks like the letter W but I don't quite understand why he should make that letter.


texts:
I have received ten boxes of poruduct . All boxes must have contained 200 pieces of product. But there were 185 pieces in the one of them. In this case would the sentences used with short,missing,less be correct and have the same meaning?

  I will send back the box with short amount.

  I will send back the box with less amount.


texts:
(sentence 1)         He saw me happy swimming.
(sentence 2)         You see me happy working with me.

Without any context, who is the subject of the sentences above?
In sentence 1, Who is the subject of swimming?
And in sentence 2, who is the subject of working?
Do we have to judge the subject according to the sentence?
Please, tell me.


texts: 'police investigation' or 'police examination'?

texts:
I think 'police investigation' is a more frequently used terms in America,
but is 'police examination' also used? or is not a right expression?


texts: Concise travel directions for public transportation

texts:
I'm writing down travel instructions using public transportation. It's a list where each line should essentially contain three pieces of information: what line to use, what direction of the line (i.e. the name of the final destination of the line) and the name of the stop where to exit the vehicle. I've got some concerns about the latter two station names getting mixed up. I'd like my formulations to be short, yet clear, and ideally something a native speaker might be using as well.

Some alternatives that come to my mind:

Bus 123, direction Foo, exit at Bar
Take bus 123 to Foo till Bar.
Take bus 123 towards Foo to Bar.
Take bus 123 direction Foo to Bar.
Take bus 123 heading for Foo, leave at Bar.
Take bus 123 to Bar, direction Foo.

In particular, I'm unsure whether the word “to” would indicate the end of the line or the stop where to exit, or perhaps both depending on context.


texts: Is there an error in the mixed conditional?

texts:
But if I'd dropped dead every time she's told me I'm going to, I'd be a medical miracle. (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

I'm a bit confused here. The mixed third/second condition doesn't allow present tense does it? I think there is a mistake here. The part "she's told me I'm going to" isn't correct here, is it?

The third/second conditional is:

  A mixed third and second conditional is used to describe a past possible action (third conditional) with a present result (second conditional).

  If I had gone to the disco on Saturday night, I would be tired now.


texts:
Is use of ":" and "of" in the following sentences correct? If it is not , kindly suggest ways to make it clearer.

  They experimentally studied effect of the blade thickness on the
  turbine performance. They presented two set of rotor blades: the first
  set of blades was of constant thickness with a Naca 0015 profile,
  along the blade length, while the second set was of linearly variable
  thickness with Naca 0021 at the hub and Naca 0009 at the tip.


texts: Reminds me a lot about/to/on/of our honeymoon - why is 'of' correct?

texts:
Seeing you in that red dress reminds me a lot ___ our honeymoon. Do you remember that red dress you bought in Hawaii and you wore it nearly every day!

about
to
on
of

Why is "of" the correct answer?


texts: What does "he was there for" mean in this sentence?

texts:
I really don't understand the usage or the meaning of "he was there for" in this sentence :

  Tony shook his head, as though he couldn’t wrap his mind around events
  he was there for, and partially responsible as well.

I understand the phrase "be there for somebody" means "support" somebody; but is it also  ok to say "be there for events"??  or I just misunderstood it?

Here is the context:

Tony, the Iron Man, and the Cap fell out; Bruce tried to convince Tony to contact Cap，as Thanos is coming, they are facing the greatest danger in history.

Here is the sentence in the book:

  “It’s not that easy,” Tony sheepishly admitted. Realizing, he looked
  at Bruce again, a touch of shame entering his usually cocky attitude.
  “God, we haven’t caught up in a spell, have we?”

  “No.” Bruce tried to hide the feeling of betrayal from his voice.

  Tony shook his head, as though he couldn’t wrap his mind around events
  he was there for, and partially responsible as well. “The Avengers
  broke up. Cap and I fell out hard. We’re not on speaking terms.”

  “Tony, listen to me.” Bruce felt like he was now dealing with two kids
  who had a schoolyard fight. The magnitude of what they faced was
  beyond a falling-out between teammates. “Thor’s gone,” he stressed.
  “Thanos is coming. It doesn’t matter who you’re talking to or not.”

  The Avengers 3


texts:
The ridicule and scorn we expected never happened.

The ridicule and scorn we never expected happened.

Can anybody explain if 1 and 2 mean the same thing? If not, what are the differences in meaning? And, always in this case, supposing that, for some reason, I have to express the 2 meaning, how can I rearrange the sentence for avoiding two -ed forms back to back?


texts:
I can climb to the top of that tree. How you ask? Well, like this.
  I can climb to the top of that tree. How, you ask? Well, like this.
  I can climb to the top of that tree. "How", you ask? Well, like this.

Here, the highlighted part, the question hasn't been asked by the listener, and doesn't require a response. What i'm concerned about is the punctuation that go/goes into that.


texts: "no one was killed or wounded" vs. "no one had been killed or wounded"

texts:
Source:

  The Ukrainian army on Saturday reported 11 attacks on its positions in the past 24 hours but no one was killed or wounded.

If I change was to had been, how will the meaning be affected?

  The Ukrainian army on Saturday reported 11 attacks on its positions in the past 24 hours but no one had been killed or wounded.

I asked an English native speaker and he said that they are very similar and both mean pretty much the same thing but there is still a slight difference though. What is that slight difference apart from the fact that in the first instance the simple past tense is used and in the second the past perfect? It seems like they both can be used almost interchangeably because there's practically hardly any difference between them.


texts: Someone who cares and someone who does not care about their responsibilities

texts:
I am looking for a single word to describe someone who does not care about their responsibilities.

Logically, the word "irresponsible" should work here, but dictionaries say that an irresponsible person is someone who doesn't think enough or worry about the possible results of what you do.

  1- Then I wonder what is the single word for a husband who does not care about his family (wife and children)? Such a man does not take charge of his family expenses and the way his children grow and the way his wife makes ends meet.

  2- The same goes for a woman who does not care about the way her children grow, what they eat, their education, etc.

  3- Or please assume a colleague who does not care about their tasks and duties at work and most of the time overlooks his/her responsibilities.

Does the word "irresponsible" applicable for all cases above?

  4- Also, I need to know the single word to describe someone who when accepts a responsibility, cares a lot about it and does his/her best in order to fulfill or accomplish it? (The exact opposite for all the cases above.)


texts:
What is the correct way?

  a) To do a meeting

  b) To make a meeting

The context: when I want to make a business with someone from the internet I can tell him "I agree to this offer (business) but before, we have to do / make a meeting about the details."


texts: Is it possible to replace "who" with "whom" in the bold clause?

texts:
“ ‘Yet the account of one mourner genuinely touched me. In response to the inquiry of a man who she may not have realized was a reporter, she revealed that she had met Landry at a treatment facility, and that they had become friends.
  (The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith)

I am curious to know if who in the bold clause can be replaced by whom. I mean is it possible?


texts: Should ''feelings of love...'' be specific here?

texts:
Why do you want a great family life? Is it because you think it will give
  you (-) feelings of love, intimacy, connection, or warmth?

  Do you want to save the world because of the
  feelings of contribution and making a difference you believe this will give you?

Why is the definite article taken in the second example?

The feelings of love and connection that I get being with you are amazing. > Definitely specific and quite different from the second example above


texts: How can I avoid repeat "the user" in a paragraph

texts:
Consider this part of paragraph:

  The elements of the page get highlighted as the mouse moves over them to make it easy for the user to detect the boundary of each element. Then, the user specifies several anchors by selecting elements of the page.  For each anchor, a dialogue opens in which the user can select or define distinguishing features of an anchor based on its attributes (e.g. id, class), text or a pattern in its text (Figure 2).

what is your suggestion to avoid repeating "the user"? somehow I think using "he" or "she" is not neutral


texts: Give somebody a warm welcome or welcome somebody warmly?

texts:
Suppose you participate in a ceremony in which you do not know the it's establishes. Someone asks you about the way they welcomed you.
Do the following sentences mean the same:

  They gave us a very warm welcome.
  They welcomed us very warmly.


texts: Adverbs of place and preposition placement

texts:
Adverbs of place and preposition - how are they used in sentences? Please clarify for me the following sentences...

  1: My friend has sent a book at my home by bus yesterday.
   2: My friend has sent a book by bus at my home yesterday.
   3: My friend has sent a book at home tomorrow by bus.

Which of the sentences above are correct?


texts: for all his wealth vs with all his wealth (concession and cause)

texts:
Could both "for" and "with" used for concession and cause? Is there any difference in meaning between the pairs below? If not, which preposition is more usual in this context?

Concession (= despite)

For all his wealth, he is humble.
With all his wealth, he is humble.

Cause (= due to)

For all his wealth, he has nothing to worry about.
With all his wealth, he has nothing to worry about.


texts: Why do we use the article "the" in "Thank you for the flowers" when flowers is plural?

texts:
My student caught me off guard.
She asked me why you say "Thank you for the flowers" when the article "the" is not used for countable nouns "I like flowers".


texts: Wear hats on profile picture or over profile picture?

texts:
In the hat season, while complimenting someone about their hats, do we say

  The hat looks good on your profile picture

Or

  The hat looks good over your profile picture

Both sound similar to me. Please advice the correct way.


texts:
I've heard expressions like this:

  1: I was born forgiving you.
   2: I was born to forgive you.

What if any difference is there between these?


texts:
I am not sure about using "used to"

We use "used to" to talk about our past habits (can I say "late habits" ?), and we cannot use any specific time, so that we talk about past in general.

So the question is: can I say "I used to drink coffee in 2010" ?
I mean that year in general, during this year I used to drink coffee everyday.

Or "I used to drink coffee two years ago?"


texts: What is the meaning of **much** in sentence: Nothing much ever happened?

texts: How to understand the meaning of the word much in the sentence: Nothing much ever happened?


texts: "To order delivery" or "to order a delivery"?

texts:
What's the correct form? A native English speaker told me it should be "to order a delivery."

However, "to order delivery" has more hits on Google Books.

Example sentence:

  Speaking of food, could you order (a) delivery? I'm still hungry.

Another similar example (I think):

  I don't have (an) appetite for them


texts: Can I use had in sentence for future time? For example "We'd be fee." Is this a simple future or simple past?

texts:
Can I use had in sentence for future time?
For example We'd be free.
Is this a simple future or simple past?


texts: "It makes (economic) sense", what are other adjective that can be used similarly?

texts:
I am used to hearing sentences like:

-It doesn't make much sense.
-It makes little sense.
-It makes
no sense.
-It makes perfect sense.

However, I find it makes economic sense really interesting since it expresses a concept rather than merely emphasizes sense.
I used this collocation dictionary to find the adjectives that are usually used with the noun sense and I found four that express concepts: legal, artistic, historical, and moral.
Then, I came up with the following sentences:

Saying that the world was one big country makes geographical sense.
(referring to the theory of continental drift)

Peafowls' colorful tail makes no evolutionary sense.
(referring to the
theory which says that organisms developped ways to camouflage, not ways to
be more visible for predators)

I think buying this 6 million dollar painting might make artistic
sense.

Hiring nine attorneys to work on this case makes legal sense.

I have two questions:

Do my sentences seem OK?
What are other adjectives that can be used similarly in the construction it makes (adj) sense to express concepts?


texts: How do native speakers 'guess' the pronunciation of the letters in a word they see for the first time?

texts:
I confess! Being a non-native speaker, I struggle a lot especially when I come across a new word. And I wonder how do native speakers pronounce perfectly even though they read the word for the very first time. There should be some rule/technique? I'm not sure.

Let's take a case.

If I see a word having 'ch' for the very first time, how do I guess it? Remember, I don't have dictionary. Nor do I have access to this great site when I encounter that word. For example,

Take the word 'chariot'. Being a non-native with quite limited knowledge of orthography, I know that 'ch' is pronounced as in 'Charles'

But then, imagine, I came across the word 'charade'. Undoubtedly, for me, it is 'ch (as in Charles)-re-d-s'. But then, actually, 'ch' there is 'sh' (as in Shane).

It's not just 'ch' but it goes for 'g' as well. 'G' as in 'goat' or 'g' as in 'gymnastic'. Is there any source that teaches how to pronounce a letter if it is placed after/before certain letter? Is there any such rule? The one I remember is when a word ends with 'mb', you don't pronounce 'b'. 'Bomb', 'Comb', 'Tomb' and many other words ending with 'b'.

There are a few more words that add another nail in the coffin of my pronunciation complexity!

  penis (pee, and not as in 'pen')  asthma (no 'th' pronounced)  Dengue (dengeee)  and many more...


texts:
I have this sentence where I am not sure about two things:

"after launch" – is that correct when I talk about a device?
"since then" – is that correct with the past simple tense?

I'm sorry for the lack of the context. The values are provided to an upstream system, hence I used "provided". It is a device for measuring of the water pH - so I thought a device can be "launched". When you start it, it provides the upstream system with the first (or initial) value in 100-200 ms. After that, it continuously provides updates.

  The first value is obtained 100-200 ms after launch and is continuously provided in the defined interval since then.


texts: difference between "hadn't met" vs "didn't meet"

texts:
Are there any differences between those sentences, and if yes what is that?

  Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several
  years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister,
  because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as
  unDursleyish as it was possible to be.

  Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they didn't meet for several
  years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister,
  because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as
  unDursleyish as it was possible to be.


texts:
I came across this sentence:

  The term "pit bull" does not designate a breed of dog, as do the terms "German shepherd" and "poodle".

I simply translated "as do" into "like", which makes the sentence like this:

  "German shepherd" and "poodle" are like "pit bull". They all do not designate a breed of dog.

But later I discovered the correct meaning of the sentence should be this:

  The "pit bull" does not designate a breed of dog. But "German shepherd" and "poodle" do designate a breed of dog.

I'm so confused right now. Doesn't "as do" mean "like"?


texts:
So when there was a meeting Joey would organize it at a place that
was safe.
This part ( Joey  would organize it at a place that was safe )
In that type of sentence, Is about past or present?


texts:
Some verbs are used with two objects (indirect-; somebody, direct-object; something). e.g.

  I gave him a watch for his birthday.
  Could you send me the report?
  I will lend you some money.
  She told me a story.

This sentences can also be used like this (I think):

  I gave a watch to him for his birthday.
  Could you send the report to me?
  I will lend some money to you.
  She told a story to me.

But these verbs cannot be used like above sentences:

  I would like you to explain me this theory. (X)
  I would like you to explain this theory to me (O)
  Can you suggest me a good cardiologist? (X)
  Can you suggest a good cardiologist to me? (O)
  Please describe me your job. (X)
  Please describe your job to me. (O)

So my questions are:

Can we explain differences between these verbs of which some are used only [direct- + to (or any prepositions) + indirect-verb], not [indirect- + direct-verb] and the others are used both.
"inform" is used like this (inform + indirect- + preposition + direct):
"Please inform us of any changes of address."
How to explain this verbs like "inform"? What's the difference? What is preposition "of" here?


texts:
I have questions regarding phrasal verbs. Their usage isn't so clear to me:

What is the difference for example between "write something" and "write something up"?
In the previous sample why "something" must be placed before "up"?

Any article on this subject would be very helpful for me!

Thanks very much


texts: How this two sentences are closely related?

texts:
Source

  Mark, a writer of crime scenarios, says at one point that,
  theoretically, he would be able to plan the perfect murder but that it
  would be impossible to carry out any plan of his because in real life
  people just do not act according to other people's plans.

In this sentence, Mark is describing people won't cooperate with each other.

In Next Sentence goes like this:

  This is true of Margot, too: Instead of listening to the radio in her
  bedroom when Tony and Mark are away, she tells her husband of her own
  plans to go to the cinema that night.

Here Margot just informing her husband about going to cinema.
I didn't understand this is true of Margot, how? (here author indirectly telling us above sentence & this sentence connected, how so?)


texts: What is the proper name for this vintage "traditional folding gate door"?

texts:
Could anyone tell me what is the correct or better name for this gate/door?

They are usually used by old shops in Asian countries (possibly from 1940s to 1960s).

The photo is on this web-page.


texts: Meaning of "...lettered avenues notwithstanding"

texts:
A writer in The Atlantic, wrote this about gentrification :

  Gentrification has rendered Lower Manhattan, Harlem, and much of Brooklyn unrecognizable to the previous generations that called those neighborhoods home. The East Village of Jonathan Larson’s Rent is nonexistent, lettered avenues notwithstanding.

Source: The Role of the Artist in the Age of Trump by Lin-Manuel Miranda

I'm not sure of the meaning of "lettered avenues notwithstanding".


texts: (A room / an office) where an artist works

texts:
What do you call a place including an office or a room where an artist (e.g. a photographer or a painter) works?
I know the word "atelier" which based on Cambridge Dictionary's definition is something literary or based on MacMillan Dictionary a formal word.

However, I need a word which doesn't sound literary or fancy and totally weird in everyday speech to talk about such a place. I wonder what word works properly in this sense if "atelier" doesn't?


texts:
The Qinghai-Tibet Railyway, the world's highest, starts operating on
Saturday. The first train  will leave Golmud for Lhasa in the
morning.
......The first train leaves Golmud for Lhasa in the morning.

This is supposed to be the first sentence of a special report. Which sentence should I use?


texts: Unprecedented is to "never done before" as "xyz" is to "never done again after"?

texts:
Or in other words, is there an adjective meaning something "has never been repeated after the first instance"?

ODO defines unprecedented as "never done or known before".

For example, in the following sentence, is there an adjective I can use in place of "never again made" so to change it to "through 'xyz' efforts"?

  The plot of “A Report to an Academy” is that an ape having shed his simian nature transforms into a human through speech and reaches the position he is at now by attaining the refinement of an average European through efforts never again made on earth.


texts:
What does "to take stress in your stride" mean ?

  It may be easier to take stress in your stride if you have confidence
  in yourself and your ability to influence events and persevere through
  challenges.


texts: any of the other instruments / any other instrument

texts:
1.I can play guitar, but I can't play any of the other instruments present in the world. Guitar is the only instrument that I can play.
2.I can play guitar, but I can't play any other instrument present in the world. Guitar is the only instrument that I can play.
a. If I start to date a girl, I stop keeping in touch with any of the other girls that I know. My girlfriend is the only person that I keep in touch with.
b. If I start to date a girl, I stop keeping in touch with any other girl that I know. My girlfriend is the only person that I keep in touch with.

For me, 1. 2. are familiar but I've seen many people use 2. and 4. I'd like to know which one is preferred.


texts: Serve time/serve their time/serve their sentence in prison

texts:
How do you describe colloquially and grammatically a prisoner who is currently in prison.

  a prisoner who serves time in prison
  a prisoner who serves their time in prison
  a prisoner who serves their sentence in prison

Are there any difference? Especially sentence#1 and sentence#2?


texts: Causative verbs: to have/get something done

texts:
Is it the same things whether I use the auxiliar verb "to have" or the verb "to get" in these causative structures? Are there any difference here? I need someone to clarify this doubt to me:

I have/get my watch fixed. (present positive present)

I don't have/get my watch fixed. (negative present tense)

Do I have/get my watch fixed? (interrogative positive present tense)

Do I not have/get my watch fixed? (interrogative negative present tense)

I had/got my hair cut. simple. (simple positive past tense)

i didn't have/ get my hair cut. (simple negative past tense)

Did I have/get my hair cut simple (interrogative affirmative tense)

Did I not have/get my hair cut? (simple interrogative negative tense)

i will have/ get my house repaired. (Future positive tense)

I will not have/ get my house repaired.  (future negative tense)

Will I have/get my house repaired? future interrogative positive tense

Will I not have/get my house repaired? (future interrogative negative tense)

I am going to have/get my tasks done (planned future tense)

I am not going  to have/get my tasks done

Am I not going to have/get my tasks done?

Am I GOING TO HAVE/get MY TASKS DONE?

I have had/got my car washed. (present perfect tense)

I have not had/ got my car washed. (present perfect negative tense)

Have I not had/ got my car washed? (present perfect interrogative tense)

Have I had/got my car washed? (present perfect interrogative tense)

I am having/getting a new house built. (present continuous tense)

I am not having/ getting a new house built. (present negative continuous tense)

Am I having/ getting a new house built? (present continuous interrogative tense)

Am I not having/getting a new house? (present negative continuous tense)

One more thing: How is the imperative or exclamative mood for this structure (causative verb[to have something done])?


texts:
What is the difference between the following two sentences?

  I came direct to my residence from the airport.

  I came directly to my residence from the airport.


texts:
Needle set/ Needles set

or

  Set of needles

Are all these constructions in conformity with the English grammar? Do they possess different meanings?


texts:
In a short story I am reading, demons are "bowing reversely" (in the presence of the Devil himself). What does it mean?

Bowing reversely, Gorson, Goap, Zimimar and Amaimon, lords of the four
quarters, went out one after one, leaving their prince alone.


texts: What is the difference between "any" and "a/an"?

texts:
I have a sentence

There isn’t ------ egg on the table.

Should the gap have any or an? What's the difference?


texts: to emphasize an possible affect, should I use future continuous tense or future tense?

texts:
The professor is talking about some rules related to databases. He makes the statement

  That means I cannot add this tuple to the solution. Because if I do,
  it will be introducing a duplicate.

Does "it will be introducing a duplicate" produce more emphasis than "it will introduce a duplicate"? or it is just a personal expression habit?

Please don't be bothered by the term "tuple", just a computer science way to say a row in a table.


texts: When is 'c' pronounced /ʃ/? Is there any rule?

texts: In addition to well-known soft /s/ and hard /k/ pronunciations, 'c' is sometimes pronounced /ʃ/ e.g. special, liquorice? Is there any rule?


texts:
When the action in a noun clause happens in the future, which tense should I use in the noun clause?

Are the tenses different in meaning if they are all grammatically correct when used in the clause? If yes, shed light on it, thanks a lot!

Here are two examples explaining my questions.

Example 1:

    (The son is going to have a adventure to somewhere far away.)

    Father talking to the son: Hey, son, when you come back, tell me what you see / saw / will see / will have seen in the journey.

Example 2:

    (I am about to go study overseas.)

    I talking to mom: Mom, when I come home, I will share with you what I learn / learned / will learn / will have learned overseas.


texts: "One of my students' dad" - How to say that correctly?

texts:
I want to convey the thought that a male parent of one of my students drinks coffee every day.
Which option is correct?

And it's not a rare thing to see the middle-aged generation on this island to also show some liking toward
coffee. One of my students' dad drinks coffee every day.

And it's not a rare thing to see the middle-aged generation on this island to also show some liking toward
coffee. One of my students' dads drinks coffee every day.

And it's not a rare thing to see the middle-aged generation on this island to also show some liking toward
coffee. A dad of one of my students drinks coffee every day.

And it's not a rare thing to see the middle-aged generation on this island to also show some liking toward
coffee. The dad of one of my students drinks coffee every day.

?

Please, note that I want to use the word "dad" (not "father"). For some reason none of these options sound right to me.


texts: Omitting "and" and using participle instead

texts:
I was working a drug case, tracking this drug dealer for months.
  Then suddenly he disappeared. (From a tv-series)

This sentence kind of confused me. In this sentence, what does participle imply? (the result of the main clause or an action that happens at time same time as main clause's action or describing the subject of the main clause?)

How can I rewrite this sentence? As:

  1- I was working a drug case and I was tracking this drug dealer
  for months. Then suddenly he disappeared.

  2- I was working a drug case and tracking this drug dealer for
  months. Then suddenly he disappeared.

  3- I was working a drug case and I tracked this drug dealer for
  months. Then suddenly he disappeared.

Can I omit "subject + be + verb" and use comma + participle ?

For example:

  4- I was reading a book and I was listening to some music.

  4a- I was reading a book and listening to some music.

  4b- I was reading a book, listening to some music.


texts: Could you explain whether following sentence is correct or not? Why?

texts:
Under what conditions is it efficient for government to require us to obtain a permission to do something?

There are three questions I don't understand in this sentence:
1. Can I put a preposition in front of "what" in special questions?
2. Is this structure correct? If not, what can we do to correct it?

3. If it is correct, will it be a formal usage or not?

Thank you in advance.


texts:
I received a spam mail with the following text:

  That brief clip can not only show you the reality,
  but it'll demonstrate how a large number of honest,
  normal men as if you are fighting back again and
  reclaiming their strength.

Is it possible to use as if you like this? Or is it just another example of bad language in spam?

I am missing a verb after it - are fighting back again belongs to normal men and not to you.

I would rather use

  normal men as you are fighting back again...

or

  normal men like you are fighting back again...

I understand the usage of as if in the context with a following verb, like

  You are stuffing yourself with the cake as if you had not eaten for three days.


texts: What is a not-cut-in/printed index called?

texts:
There are thumb indexes, also called a cut-in indexes (see also the images at Daumenregister). In contrast to this, there are also not-cut-in-indexes (that is, they are only printed, and leave a mark on the edge of the book).

Image by Montauk
The article is only available in German, but translating to English that entry says:

Handmarkes are usually mounted at the book on the front section, step-like printed, order words, letters or numbers. Usually they are coloured and help to find desired points, especially in reference works.
The Handmarke is not to be confused with the thumb index, but is often also called thumb index (English chapter thumbs).

The (Google) English translation "Hand stamp" for German "Handmarke" does not seem right for me and several other on-line dictionaries (as well as my printed ones) do not know "Handmarke" at all. And Handmarke is not thumb index.
What should I call this type of register in proper (British) English?


texts: What is the meaning of the comma in the following sentence?

texts:
What is the meaning of the comma in the following sentence from A Pocket Full of Kisses by Audrey Penn?

  Chester grinned so wide, the tips of his silky black mask crinkled upward.

Does "Chester grinned so wide, the tips of silky black mask crinkled upward"

mean

"Chester grinned so wide with the tips of silky black mask crinkled upward" ?

If so, is it grammatically possible to use a comma to mean "with"?


texts: What is the usage of present perfect in "The time has come"?

texts:
I know that the present perfect describes an action that happened before the present without referring to a specific point in past time. But I have a problem with understanding this sentence.

  The time has come for you to take over the company.

I know what it means, but to my non-native mind I would say

  It is time for you to take over the company.


texts:
Someone asks me a question in very formal conversation. And I want to know why he/she is asking me this question. Basically, I want to know the reason and purpose behind this question. How can I ask this formally and politely? Can I say, what is the purpose of inquiry?
Thanks


texts:
I am not sure if the title describes my question here, but I am not sure whether I need to use the definite article in this context:

  Qualitative research instruments include interviews, focus groups,
  reviews, and observation. [The] Interviews include either a series of
  structured questions, or allowing subjects to speak out their
  experience. [The] Focus groups allow gathering observations from a group of
  people who have similar properties. For instance, a group of men over
  40. They give their opinions of the given topic. [The] review is done to collect scholarly written literature or other published materials to
  find attitudes towards a subject.

Do I need to use "the" in the bold sections in the paragraph above? If so, can you please explain the reason?


texts: Confused of "the conference isn't until later today"

texts:
In this techcrunch article, I noticed a rather strange sentence:

  Huawei’s CES press conference isn’t until later today, but the company’s already having a rough time of it.

I can't wrap my head around the "conference isn't until later today" part. Isn't it more common to say "the conference will not begin until later today"?


texts:
According to many dictionaries, "forever" (n or adv) refers to time, but I want to use it to refer to space, but which version is correct, the one-word or two-word version? E.g.:
The field goes on for ever.
The field goes on forever.
I suppose it can be argued that the word still refers to time here since that's the how the field goes...forever.
And while "forever" can either be a noun or an adverb, the following usage seems to make it an adj. Can someone more knowledgeable please clarify?
The adoptive parents gave the little orphan a forever home.


texts: what is the difference between After I met vs after meeting?

texts:
Some contexts to clear things up. I am working with a PhD. student(Ms. S) who she offered me another opportunity in the lab, but she asked me to email her Dr..

And here is the sentence that confused me

After I met with Ms. S, I found your lab's work is my area of interest and I would love to continue to work in the lab

or

After meeting with Ms.s, I found your lab's work is my area of interest and I would love to continue to work in the lab


texts:
Suppose a bullet struck the back side of someone's head:

He was shot in the back of his head.
He was shot in the back of the head.

Is one of them wrong?  Are they different?


texts: Choosing options in "The company is not doing well-isn't it time you sell/sold/selling off your shares in it?"

texts:
Choose the option which expresses the sentence in the best manner:
The company is not doing well-isn't it time you sell/sold/selling off your shares in it?

From my point of view, sell is the best option as the sentence is of simple present tense. Using the option sold will make it in past tense. Please suggest your answers.


texts: A verb for "a blowing wind making something fall"

texts:
I have the following sentence:

  Can strong winds ______ a tall building?

Otherwise, I would have to ask "Can strong winds make a tall building fall?"

What is the suitable verb?


texts: Words to describe the situation in which my diary book has a few fresh pages left

texts:
I bought a few diary books some time ago.
Each diary book has 60 pages.
I like writing diary, but my diary book only has a few fresh pages left, which means I have to write my diary in a new one very soon.

Given that situation, I am trying to describe it using the words I have learned from school.

Here it is:

  (1). My diary book is about to use up.

But I think (1) can not fully describe my situation, because it can not tell people that my diary book only has a few pages left to write on.

Can you help me please?


texts:
I'm asking this because I'm curious to know the way native speekers say this:

Where did you get this.

In this sentence when we contract the "did" in speech do we stress the word that precedes it or the one that follows it?

I mean do we say "Where'd you get this?" or we say "Where d'you get this?".

This also implies other words like what,how,when and others.


texts: Is the sentence "Ice Cream Sandwich guinea pig" wrong due to the lack of apostrophe?

texts:
I just saw this headline on the internet: "Galaxy Nexus: Android Ice Cream Sandwich guinea pig".

My knowledge in English  tells me the construction is wrong because of a missing apostrophe after "sandwich", but in the website I saw it nobody seemed to point this out.

I saw a print screen of it on Reddit, by the way, but since it was a headline of an article, I assume any mistakes would have been pointed out.

Is this sentence construction wrong?


texts: Difference between 'stomach' and 'uterus'

texts:
If a lady is pregnant, for her can this be said?

  She had a baby in her stomach.

Or is it necessary to use the word womb or uterus?


texts: a bridge over the river vs a bridge across the river

texts:
In a video on youtube, it says "we prefer 'over' to talk about a movement to the other side of sth high. We prefer 'across' to talk about a movement to the other side of a flat area".

I think "a bridge across the river" means the bridge is a flat bridge that is nearly above the river, while "a bridge over the river" means the bridge is an arch bridge. Am I right?


texts: Can I say "house's roof", or only "roof of the house"?

texts:
For example:
1) House's roof collapsed yesterday.
or
2) The roof of the house collapsed yesterday.

Which of these two is better and why?


texts:
I named my app like

  Like-minded - find and chat with people having similar interests

Oxford dictionary says chat goes with to preposition. But I learnt in school that if communication can described 'two-way' rather than 'one-way', than using with is more proper. Do you agree?


texts:
My colleague and I are software developers and we were reviewing a particular block of code that has been there for ages and when we shared it with the lead these two phrase were used and it caught my attention. I wondered if they meant the same thing:

  "it does nothing" vs "it doesn't do anything"

I was discussing this with my colleague at work and he argued that the first one is the correct one.  But I felt that there's no difference.


texts: an especial usage of the construction" much of"

texts:
...He is much of a gentlemen, and he has traveled enough to throw off that...

When or in which situation or condition would you rather use the bold part construction and could you please show me a synonym phrase or word for it?

Thanks in advance


texts:
As we speak using a conjunction like:

  "When joy will come, then we will go to market."
  "We will go to market when joy comes."

Which of these sentences are correct in speaking English?


texts:
Dogs use their excellent sense of smell to detect friends and foe around them. Nevertheless, bats rely on their incredible ears to navigate the world using echolocation.

A. NO CHANGE

B. In the same way,

C. On the other hand,

D. Otherwise,

I picked C because I thought it was contrast. Correct Answer is B. Is the question wrong because we might require bit more context? Please explain answer choice B and C.


texts:
Interest rate is average prime lending rate till June 2010 and base rate afterwards.

This was put behind an image of governors in a newspaper, with the time periods of respective tenures.It also mentioned the GDP growth and inflation in their respective tenures.

I am confused about the meaning of bold part.Also, the tense seems to be weird.For, e.g., he is a school-going child till 2010 and (then is) college-student afterward.I think "was" , or "have been" are better than "is" here.

Though the image is unclear,  it will give you an idea.The bottom two lines are what I wrote above.


texts: what is meaning of "Raise" and "any hour more" in this context?

texts:
Ram: Did you ask Mr. Davidson for a raise ?
  Sri: Yes, I asked for 80 cents any hour more.

In first sentence I understand like, Ram asking Davidson for funds. But I didn't get why he used article before "raise".

In second sentence I am not understand why Sri used "any hour more" in that sentence. Please explain what Ram asked and what Sri replied.


texts: Does "an open end" mean an end of a tube or the like?

texts: I am trying to describe an end of a tube or the like that has a passage inside through which fluid flows.  I think such an end can be described as an open end.  However, when I googled "open end", a lot of images of spanners/wrenches appeared. Is it inappropriate to use "open end" to describe an end of a tube?


texts: How to translate "cocotte en papier" in English?

texts:
I'm surprised how I never been able to found an online translation of "cocotte en papier" (which is the thing pictured below), or people able to answer IRL, other than via less precise terms as "origami" or "paper bird".

"Paper bird" is too un-specific (see link below) compared to the original. E.g. I know 3 types of cranes, and there are yet other origami birds, than the "hen/cocotte" (that is supposed to be famous for being one on the most easy and well-known origami after the plane ;-) , at least in France ).
https://www.google.com/search?q=paper+bird&tbm=isch

Searching "paper bird" from my French account, the cocotte appears only once on this search, at rank ~35, and not again in the several hundreds following. I didn't suspected such a peculiar folding and concept could be idiomatic! Like, all French children know how to fold it, for generations and up to now, and it's not by school teaching.

--> Is there a name for that thing ?

(NB: in French "cocotte" is a colloquial term for hen, but maybe other countries' people see another kind of bird in this origami :-) ).

Note that this very origami figure used to be the typical illustration for procrastination in France; I don't know if it carries the same connotation in other countries.


texts:
Is it correct this? :

Today is 25°C

Or this:

Today it’s 25°C

And without today:

Is 25°C/ It’s 25°C


texts:
Shouldn't the phrase "commit to" be followed by a present participle or a noun? I wonder whether the word "differentiate" is wrong in its form.

These studies provide further insights into how hematopoietic progenitors commit to differentiate into basophils or mast cells.

Source: Science  E-cadherin is regulated by GATA-2 and marks the early commitment of mouse hematopoietic progenitors to the basophil and mast cell fates


texts: What is the meaning of Sentence and how it constructs

texts:
Although he had never taken piano lessons, anytime that jeff, who was unusually intelligent, saw a piano,he was able to play a song.

In the above sentence,         ( Although he had never taken piano lessons,he was able to play a song. ) I think this is the main sentence. But In the middle portion of the two main clause,
(anytime that jeff, who was unusually intelligent, saw a piano,)
it seems appositive, and for this I can't understand the meaning of the whole sentence.( Who is unusually intelligent, saw a piano) it is not clear to me weather it refers jeff or he?
And, How can I understand clearly in this type of sentence?


texts:
source

The context is:

  Practise, practise, practise. There's an expression in English. If you don't want to lose it, use it. This is very true when it comes to learning foreign languages.

What does the bolded phrase mean? come to doing something


texts: What is the difference between present continuous and future continuous?

texts:
What time are you meeting Jane?What time will you be meeting Jane?

Henry is not coming to the party next week.Henry will not be coming to the party next week.

What time are you arriving?What time will you be arriving?


texts: Exclusionary criteria vs. Exclusion criteria

texts:
Is there any difference between exclusionary criteria and exclusion criteria?

By exclusionary criteria or exclusion criteria, I want to designate the characteristics that disqualify prospective subjects from inclusion in a study.


texts:
I have no idea if it's because of whether informal English or not, but I found this reporter talking about a boat passing by an iceberg and he was like:

  This iceberg here, there's outcroppings under the water. And uh, see ice, iceberg is so very hard, so it's like a can opener.

I was wondering when to use singulars with plurals like what was in the quote as you see, outcroppings is used with a singular to-be verb.

Is there any special grammar behind this or just causal talks because I've heard in movies the same too?!


texts:
When it is necessary to have electrical devices which come into
  contact with water, such devices shall be designed and listed for use
  in water.

I looked up a dictionary, but couldn't find any definition that fits in this context. What does "listed" exactly mean? Does it mean that the device shall be labeled for use in water?


texts: Why are verbs following "have not" in past tense, but verbs following "did not" are in present tense?

texts:
For example:

  I have not booked the flight.
  I did not book the flight.

  I haven't bought the lemons.
  I did not buy the lemons.


texts:
I was wondering when using the phrasal verb "take to," whether or not it is accompanied by a definite article "the."
As in "take to the streets," which I believe "the" is used all the time as an idiomatic usage, I ran into an expression "take to the airwaves":

But before they could, the news leaked. The public outcry, particularly in Britain, was immediate. Fans hung banners outside their teams’ stadiums, and lawmakers took to the airwaves to denounce the rebels for their greed and disrespect toward soccer’s traditions. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/sports/soccer/super-league-soccer.html?smid=url-share)

So, does the same rule of definite article apply when using "take to"?


texts: How to respond when someone say "I hope it helps"

texts:
We are given an assignment, and my foreigner seatmate helped me to answer one question and he added "I hope it helps"

I am not sure what to respond, out of my to speak in English I responded thank you, need any help on how to respond to these.


texts:
Is it correct to say

  I've always had the system unbalanced to the computer
  I've had him happy throughout the year.
  I've always had the system being unbalanced to the system.
  I've had her being happy throughout the year.

Which one is the correct structure? And what is the official rule for those.

I've seen that the verb as make doesn't need a verb (to be) before adjectives, neither I see gerunds after the noun/prounoun(s)

  She makes me happy.
  He makes the system unbalanced.
  She made me do it (it's not doing)

I hope someone could explain me the whole rules of these sentences, thanks in advance


texts:
The following is the voice-mail I have constructed. Please correct me if you see any grammatical errors or if the flow of the sentence doesn't sound right.

  Hello. You have reached (name). Unfortunately I can't take your call
  right now. Please leave your name and a message, and I will contact
  you as soon as possible.

In addition do I require an "a" between "and" and "message"?
Is there anything I can add to this?

This voicemail is mainly to target recruiters/companies that have called me for job offers/interviews and also friends and relatives.


texts: Can we say 'chubby' about adult people? Would it have a positive or negative meaning?


texts:
The doctor found that he had been bitten by a snake.

In this sentence had been is used, actually had been is used for progressive action for some time. But here had been is used.
Why shouldn't we use sentence as:

  "The doctor found that he had bitten by a snake"?


texts: "Notify authorities" Or "Notify the authorities"?

texts:
Could you tell me if I have to use 'the' before 'authorities' in the following context?

If you suspect that something illegal is going on, you are supposed to notify (the) authorities right away.

Could you also explain the logic of using it('the') or not in the context?


texts: Is "After which amount I need to check their ID?" correct?

texts:
If I work as a bank teller, and my manger ask me to check customer's ID when they withdraw large amount of cash. If I want to know what does he mean by large amount, is it correct to say:

  "After which amount I need to check their ID?"


texts:
For example while we are going by a bus , my daughther asked me how much longer we would go , would it be correct if say the sentence  below .

  We will go for as much distance as we went until now.


texts:
Do you have anything to declare?

No nothing. Just the normal allowance.

I don't understand question and its answer.
Please tell me meaning and where this sentence used.
Thanks.


texts:
While I was reading the novel "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan (James Oliver Rigney), I found this sentence:

  A beautiful battle is one you don't have to fight.
  (Matrim Cauthon, Knife of Dreams, Chapter 27: A Plain Wooden Box)

Does the sentence mean that: Never be in a fight? Or never start fight if you will lose it?

i think the comment by oerkelens is more accurate. Mat likes 3 things
Good ale, Women And gambling But battle cannot give him no one of that But the truth is that he's at winning battle dispute how delicate the situation So he's called son of battle, lord of battle, prince of raven, Lord of Luck,Marshal General,Son of Battles,Gambler, Lord Crimson, One-Eyed Fool, Battle Lord, Horn Sounder


texts: Is it normal to find mistakes in the novel “Lord of Flies”?

texts:
I started reading “Lord of Flies” from William Golding, and so far I really like it.
However, I came across many grammar or verb mistakes like the ones below:
“Your dad don’t know, nobody don’t know...”
“We was attacked”
I know the dialogues are maintained with 12-year-olds, so I wonder if it’s on purpose.


texts: considerably improve and update or considerably improving and updatating

texts:
I'm trying to write a motivation letter and I'm having doubts when writing a couple of sentences using ing termination or not.

To  enroll in this course will allow me to pursue my career goal of considerably improve and update my skills (vs considerably improving and updating my skills)
I worked remotely as a free-lancer for a company which challenged me to transmit data through ultrasound in air (vs challenged me to transmitting data through ultrasound in air )

More interested than in knowing which option is correct, I'm interested in understanding why. Just for the record I'm a Spanish speaking native


texts: How long have you stayed or How long have you been staying

texts:
Are both the present perfect and the present perfect progressive correct in the following? If so, what's the difference?
I prefer the present perfect progressive because the stay seems to be going on. But is the present perfect possible?

A: How long have you stayed in New York? / How long have you been staying in New York?

B: I've been here for seven days. I visited many tourist spots.


texts:
What is the difference between in term of and in terms of ?
Are both used in writing ?

Thank you!


texts: Can you write "disjuncted" sentences like this?

texts:
You wanted your son to see this. That's why you did it to boast about
your career and how prominent you were.

Is the above valid grammar?
The above was meant to say the following:

You did it to boast about your career and how prominent you were, and to have your son see this.

Not sure if this construction is valid grammar.


texts: "Most everyone" versus "mostly everyone"?

texts:
Saying "most everyone" is much more popular in books than "mostly everyone".

  To compute the distance between two coordinates most everyone/mostly everyone uses the Spherical Law of Cosines equation.

Which expression should I use?


texts: You can listen to the entire podcast over on Luminary if you want to

texts:
You can listen to the entire podcast over on Luminary, if you want to.

Is it necessary to use the preposition "over" in this sentence? What about this:

You can listen to the entire podcast on Luminary, if you want to.


texts: What does 'Don't blame it on the pig!' mean?

texts:
In the Disney movie 'Moana', Tala who is a grandmother of Moana said "Whatever just happened... blame it on the pig."

I've googled and found some headlines like 'Flu? Don't blame the pig', so guessed 'Blame the pig' means blaming someone who is innocent. And the sentence in the movie was a kind of game of words since there is a pig character who is a friend of Moana.


texts:
Mechanical power can be transmitted for hundreds of miles, men can
  communicate almost instantaneously by telephone, the chiefs of great
  organizations can be transported by airplanes, the cinemas can produce
  plays in every village, music, speeches, and sermons can be broadcast.

Would it be clearer to add "and" before "music" and drop (or keep) the last comma or change the commas at the end of the sentences to semi-colons?

Mechanical power can be transmitted for hundreds of miles, men can communicate almost instantaneously by telephone, the chiefs of great organizations can be transported by airplanes, the cinemas can produce plays in every village, [and] music, speeches and sermons can be broadcast.


texts: what's the meaning of "have something on edge"?

texts:
Syndrome, or MERS, outbreak, which has Korea on edge.

What's the meaning of a phrase "have something on edge"?

I know that 'on edge' means being worried or anxious.

Does it mean that MERS makes Korea worried?


texts: Can ‘is’ and ‘are’ be used in the same sentence? ‘The conclusion is both are harmful.’

texts:
The conclusion is both are harmful.

My friends told me that you can not use 'is' and 'are' in the same sentence.


texts:
Does it refer to 'humiliating situations resulting from economic inequality'? Or, a specific phrase in the passage?

Economic inequality can be objectionable for this reason I am now
discussing, because extreme inequality in income and wealth can mean
that the poor must live in a way that is reasonably seen as
humiliating. As Adam Smith observed, it is a serious objection to a
society if some people are so much poorer than others that they have
to live and dress in such a way that they cannot go out in public
without shame. The evil here is comparative — it is not merely having
ragged clothes, or poor housing, but having to live and present
oneself in a way that is so far below the standard generally accepted
in the society that it marks one as inferior. As this reference to
“standards generally accepted” indicates, economic inequalities have
these effects only given certain prevailing attitudes about what is necessary in order for someone to be socially acceptable. So what
is objectionable is a certain combination of economic inequality and
social norms.

Why Does Inequality Matter?


texts: Comparative illusion - Why is it ungrammatical?

texts:
I read that the sentence:
"More people have been to Russia than I have"
is a comparative illusion and in particular ungrammatical.
I do not understand which grammatical rule(s) it violates (the explanation on Wikipedia doesn't help me). It seems to me that the sentence means:
"The set of people that have been to Russia has greater cardinality that the singleton containing myself."
which is a silly and obviously true claim.
Which grammatical rule does the comparative illusion violate?


texts:
Please correct me if am wrong,
What is the appropriate way of expressing the past tense of pain
Should it be, "I am pained" or "I was pained"


texts:
A company celebrates its 30th anniversary.

If I write:

  For 30 years, at your service.
  For 30 years, the best solution.

is that correct?

Or maybe it should be:

  About 30 years, at your service.
  About 30 years, the best solution.


texts: What does "peanuts" mean in "all them peanuts"?

texts:
Today I came across another post somewhere on Stack Exchange (you need 10k to see). It was blatantly off-topic and a moderator closed it. The user responded in comments:

  nope..... im here for the communty and all them peanuts!!

I headed over to chat and asked people if they knew, and someone responded with "Iceland Friday". It didn't make any sense to me however. I also looked up OED and all 4 entries didn't make sense, either.

What is the meaning of "peanuts" in the context?


texts: Can we omit the preposition FOR when show how long something has been happening/has happened and so on

texts:
Came across two sentences w/o for  and became curious if it's correct and appropriate.

They have been together __ four years.

I have been waiting __ two hours, can't believe she stood me up.


texts: Is there any difference in meaning between "finish something in a week" and "finish something after a week"?

texts:
Is there any difference in meaning between finish something in a week and finish something after a week? For example:

I'll finish the job in a week.
I'll finish the jon after a week.


texts:
This is from 'How I met your mother'

  I want to go to Germeny to study, but I don't want to lose Ted. I even thought about long distance as if that ever works.

What if I delete "ever" here like..

  I want to go to Germeny to study, but I don't want to lose Ted. I even thought about long distance as if that works.

Is there any difference between #1 and #2?


texts: Which tense to use in an academic paper when referring to past research?

texts:
I am writing a paper in mathematics.

Stone theorems have a long history. B [B78] proved the stone theorem for the B model. C and D [CD14] not only prove a stone theorem for the cake process in random environment, but also have a nice overview of existing results.

(here B, C and D are some names, and 'stone theorem' and 'the cake process' also represent something else, but it is not important for the structure)

Question: is it ok to use a past tense in the first sentence which refers to 1978, but use a present tense in the second sentence which describes something that happened relatively recently, in 2014?


texts:
I have come across with a sentence that follows the same pattern of the coming sentence:

The writer grieved about the usage of this term.

However, I have checked in dictionaries that grieve is expected to work with over. So, is the usage of grieve with about grammatically incorrect? And if that is not the case, are both constructions interchangeable?


texts: Different meanings of the word "delicate"

texts:
According to Oxford Learners Dictionaries, delicate has six different meanings. These are some of them:

easily damaged or broken
made or formed in a very careful and detailed way

How do I decide one between different meanings in a sentence?

For example:
The first meaning: the delicate ecological balance of the rainforest.
The second meaning: the delicate mechanisms of a clock.
Which one?: Islands often support delicate ecosystems that evolved without any need for defence.


texts:
What does “that sticks” mean in the following line?

  What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient. . . highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed, fully understood. . . that sticks right in there somewhere.Source: IMDB, Quotes for Dominic Cobb (Character) from Inception (2010)


texts:
I read on news that

  ... such checks are a must for ...

why is the plural subject here followed by "a", a singular determiner?


texts:
Meanwhile, Karen Pence "wouldn't so much as say hello to Trump," Michael Lewis, the author of "Moneyball" and "The Big Short," wrote in a Guardian long read based on several interviews with Trump insiders and published Thursday.

I guess "long read" just refers to something that takes long time to read. But I'm not sure if it's accurate.

I know the word meaning of 'read'. What I am unsure is if the phrase "long read" is a set/idiom, which I am not aware of. That's the reason why I asked. If it just means the sense of its literal meaning, then it's fine. I just want to get it accurately.

The full source.


texts: Indefinite article before "increased emphasis"?

texts:
The question is whether the indefinite article an before "increased emphasis" is needed.

  During system design, there is increased emphasis on interface-based design.

  During system design, there is an increased emphasis on interface-based design.

Are both sentences correct?


texts:
The Undersigned certifies under oath that the information provided herein is true.

How far can you take the pattern where "the" plus an adjective replaces a noun?
Would this be more natural as long as the listener knows what nouns come after, than a complete phrase with a noun? Or are these more limited in usage and acceptance that people would only use this for words like "the poor" or "the rich", and a few more others which are already generalized?

Thank you.


texts: Recently I saw the movie Kung Fu panda, and there was one interesting sentence.When Oogway is about to make the decision who the Dragon Warrior will be, Master Shifu says : ' He will now choose the Dragon Warrior". Why is the adverb now used with "will" here? Does the word "now" mean "soon" here? Or is the verb will used here as a modal verb?


texts:
Which one is correct to cite:

To discuss this in more details.

or

To discuss this in detail.


texts:
I was writing a message to a friend. She was going to arrive to my country one of these days. I was about to ask:

Are you here yet?

But then I thought, "Is that a 'legal' question?" Judging from context.reverso.net it probably is. One can see there:

Are you finished yet?

But I don't think (judging from dictionaries) "yet" can ever mean "already." It's probably closer to "not already."
My conjecture here is that "are you here already?" is a neutral question. But if I use "yet" instead, it's like, "I've been waiting for you for a couple of days now. Haven't you arrived yet?" Meaning, "yet" makes it more emotional, conveys a feeling of longing or something.
To sum it up. Can I use "yet" in the above mentioned context? If so, what would it mean? If not, what is a better phrasing?


texts:
I came across this task during my exam.

  Ted Sanford was born nine minutes later than his brother Harry. It was his twin brother, Harry, who was (supposed/thought) to become an earl, to inherit a castle in Scotland.

I had a feeling that supposed was the right answer and it was indeed, but I can't explain to myself why thought isn't correct. Could you, please, help me with that?

I think this is in passive voice because here it is said that constructions with 'supposed' belong to Passive Voice. https://learn-english.wonderhowto.com/how-to/use-passive-voice-supposed-english-234202/


texts: What does "fabric of his existence" means?

texts:
I heard this sentence in movie "The Fisher King"

  See, guy goes to work every day, eight hours a day, seven days a week.
  Gets his nuts so tight in a vice, he starts questioning the very fabric
  of his existence.


texts:
What is a commonly used expression meaning "at every hour", e.g. 10:00, 11:00, 12:00 but not 10:18, 11:18, 12:18?
"Every hour" does not seem to distinguish between the two cases. Also it seems that "round hour" is not used similarly to "round number". And "every exact hour" does not seem to be commonly used either.


texts:
Having no amount of choices and hence availing of "what" we can ask:

  1) What flamethrower do you want?

Having some listed amount we will use "which":

  2) Which one of these flamethrowers do you want?

If we have no listed quantity for the alive figure:

  3) Who do you want to help to?

Having that it will be "which" or still "who":

  4) Who of them will be sent a present by her to?

  5) Which of them will be sent a present by her to?


texts:
'A-why,' says he, 'I was out a-hunting today, and I got away to a
  place in the wood I'd never seen before. And there was an old
  chalk-pit. And I heard a kind of a sort of humming. So I got off my
  hobby, and I went right quiet to the pit, and I looked down. Well,
  what should there be but the funniest little black thing you ever set
  eyes on. And what was that doing, but that had a little
  spinning-wheel, and that was spinning wonderful fast, and twirling
  that's tail. And as that span that sang:

  Nimmy nimmy not.   My name's Tom Tit Tot.'

This content is from "Tom Tit Tot" in English fairy tales.

What's the meaning of "nimmy"?


texts:
When someone owes someone else a sum of money and they are NOT paying it back, they don't even intend to give it back to the lender, it is kind of suppressing, right? But I don't feel it is natural to say:

He suppressed my money.

I don't know why it sounds a little weird to me, maybe because you suppress someone's right, as I've read  but do we suppress someone's property too, e.g. money?


texts:
This is just one of many examples where she demonstrates incredible work ethic, dedication and caringness.

I'd like  to find an actual english word that conveys the meaning of the made-up word "caringness". Can you please suggest a few options?


texts:
Can a hyphen be used as a colon? For instance, a grocery list.
Grocery list - chicken sandwich, salad, fries


texts: Ii think I'll enjoy LIVING/settling abroad

texts:
Let's say you are watching a video about the lifestyle in a foreign land, and you are enjoying what you are seeing, now you want to live there for good. Can you say:

  I think I'll enjoy LIVING there for good.

Or

  I think I'll enjoy settling my life there for good.

Is this a correct word-choice to say permanently?, Because the "living" word here means only temporary right?, I just can't find the correct word for it...


texts: Think of going out and enjoying / enjoy the wind

texts:
It being a windy night, you must think of going out and enjoying the wind.

according to me ,it should have been "enjoy" not "enjoying". Can anyone please explain this to me?


texts: Is "She's a corrigible flirt" a proper positive form of "She's an incorrigible flirt"?

texts:
She’s an incorrigible (incorreggibile) flirt.

She's a corrigible (correggibile) flirt.

In Italian language "incorreggibile", used like in "1" case, is a 'negative' word for which, strictly speaking, the 'positive' form doesn't exist.
In fact, in Italian language one cannot use the "2" sentence because it sound awkward. I'm not sure why, but I think that this happens because "1" example is a bit idiomatic.
Furthermore, always with regarding to Italian language, I'm not able to think of another word, different from "correggibile", that can express the 'positive' form of "incorreggibile".
So, I'm wondering if, in English language, "corrigible" can be used to express the 'positive' form of "incorrigible" in "2" case. If not, does another word exist? Or, in this case, are English and Italian similar?


texts: present or present progressive for a repeated actions

texts:
Shall I say

  Every year I am going to France for my holidays.

or

  Every year I go to France for my holidays

Are both acceptable? As it is for holidays it is a temporary action (progressive) but it is also a repeated actions. It happens every year. (present)


texts: I want to express I dance and the dance is showing someone else’ happiness instead of ‘I dance happily.’ So does ‘I dance in his happy way’ sound natural to native English speakers?


texts: "the article is" or "the article looks": which one is correct and formal?

texts:
I was writing a Thank You email and I am confused with my grammar of the sentences

Thanks. The article is perfect now

or,

Thanks. The article looks perfect now

or,

Thanks. The articles is great now

Which one is formal and correct ?


texts:
I have two sample groups with the same variables. For example, age and blood pressure for two groups. I would like to say that these two variables are correlated either at both corners (first group) or at the upper corner only (second group)
Variable A and B show strong correlation only at either both upper and lower corners or at one corner only.
I fee my sentence is very difficult to understand. How to use either and both (if I can) in my sentence.


texts:
I'm editing a children's book about wonders of the World. In this book, the authors are not native speakers(they are XACT BOOK(India)), and they wrote these specific places without article "the":

  -It is Taj Mahal.

  -It is Tower of Pisa.

At first, I thought it's okay, but there are some pages has article "the":

  -It is the Great Pyramid of Giza.

  -It is the Temple of Artemis.

These sentences really make me confused. After researching, this website-https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ - gives me some advice:

  Do use the before:

    names of rivers, oceans, and seas: the Nile, the Pacific

    points on the globe: the Equator, the North Pole

    geographical areas: the Middle East, the West
    deserts, forests, gulfs, and peninsulas: the Sahara, the Persian Gulf, the Black Forest, the Iberian Peninsula

Unfortunately, I'm still not sure that adding "the" before each wonder's name is a right choice. Should I add article "the" or not? I already posted this problem in another website, but I'm still in vain.


texts: What firstly comes when adjective and adverb put together in a meaning?

texts:
Which one is right?

  Have a lovely nice day

or

  Have a nice lovely day