Discussion Forum
This is a forum to discuss the gray areas of the English language for which you would not find answers easily in dictionaries or other reference books.
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Hi guys! I’ve just dug up 3 new lingual curiosities: ‘washeteria’, ‘yogurgitation’ and ‘in-a-gadda-da-meeting’. How do you like them? ‘washeteria’ sounds to me like a Spanish word ‘cafeteria’ so it probably means a place where you take a shower; ‘yogurgitation’ is nicely connected with ‘yoghurt’ but it suggests throwing it up; the third word refers to a meeting, which could have been done in half of the time it actually took. However its spelling seems to me a little bit exotic. Can you help with the explanation?
Why does ‘not’ in ‘you’d better not go there’ stands separately after ‘had better’ phrase but forms ‘hadn’t’ in the question:’Hadn’t you better go now?’ I see no logic here...
Is there any nice and concise word for a person who is given private tuitions and the one for sb who makes graffiti?
“As if” and “as though”, does it mean the same thing? Is one more colloquial and the other more formal? How do you use them?
Hi all. I’m back after a long time. I just finish a short movie and you don’t know what a pain I had, writing the dialogues in English. Anyway, is there any other word than “abnormal” which is negated with prefix AB? Of course there are obscure words like “abnegate”, but I mean the words that one really uses.
I am told by my business partner that using “Can I get a...” from a waiter is verging on the rude and that you should use “please may I have...”.
Would you agree?
I recently had the urge to use “Zen” to describe a way of traveling light, calm, and without want. However, after looking in a dictionary, I learned that “zen” is not listed as ever being an adjective. How can this be so? I am absolutely sure I have heard things being described as “zen” on television and in media. In a phrase such as “Zen garden” would “Zen” be an adjective, or would “Zen Garden” function as an entire, or proper, noun? Just wondering. Thanks.
1)”They were all trying to figure out which theoretical trend would be fashionable by the time they would attend postgraduate school, and scheming career plans.”
Is the tenses coordination ok? and the words appropriate?
2) “Most sold out in time and made a career of denouncing what they had worshipped.”
Does “sold out” sound very weird? Is there a better idiom to describe with contempt the way leftists-turned-capitalist-champions betrayed the ideals of their youth?
And, am I intruding here?
A friend was thankful for a gift I gave him today and said to me, “I am in your debt. No, wait... you are in my debt. Thanks.”
I am now thinking about the meaning of these idioms. We’ve all heard variants of this (not using the word “indebted”):
1: “I am in your debt.” 2: “You are in my debt.” 3: “I am in debt to you. 4: “You are in debt to me.”
I am now unclear if the users of these phrases are using them correctly. Whom owes whom? Right now, I am seeing it like this: 1: Speaker is stating that listener owes something to speaker. 2: Statement that listener owes something to listener. 3: Speaker owes something to listener. 4: Statement that listener owes something to speaker.
Are these correct? Are there more clear variants of showing indebtedness (I now open the subject up to using the word “indebted”)?
I wrote:
“And up back to his room upstairs would go little bastard, back to his beloved stories of lonely wolves in the Great North and sailors stranded on desert islands, wondering where this interesting piece of semiotic, as handy as it might come considering the volatility of the family atmosphere and the frequency with which possessive adjectives and other epithets would fly around, did exactly fit in the regular schedule of grandmother’s lessons on “accords grammaticaux” , “concordance des temps” and other neatly logical delicacies.”
It’s been suggested that I should write:
“And up back up to his room upstairs would go the the little bastard, back to his beloved stories of lonely wolves in the Great North and sailors stranded on desert islands, wondering where this interesting piece of semiotic, as handy as it might come considering the volatility of the family atmosphere and the frequency with which possessive adjectives and other epithets would fly around, did exactly fit in the regular schedule of grandmother’s lessons on “accords grammaticaux” , “concordance des temps” and other neatly logical delicacies.”
To which I object:
1) Don’t people sometimes talk like that:
“And up [rising intonation, short pause] back to his room [falling intonation]”
or is that an utter impossibility in english, whether written or spoken?
2) “the little bastard”
It’s possible to say: “back to his room would go little Pete” or “little Tom”, right?
Now, the story here is about a boy who’s not the son of his father, and he is the only one who doesn’t know it. And when the family members interact with him, they’re always affraid to let the big secret slip, an when they look at him, they don’t see little Pete or little Tom, but a big problem. That’s why here “bastard” is used like a personal name, because “little bastard” is the name that’s in their mind when they think about him (they actually love him very much). Is that possible? Should I uppercase “Little Bastard”?
I wonder too wether the clause between “wondering where this interesting piece of semiotic,” and ” did exactly fit ” is too long, and the reader loses track of the subject when he gets to the verb, or is it flowing smoothly enough?
