Profile: porsche

Everyday

June 6, 2006, 9:07am

Actually, everyday (one word) does NOT mean "daily". It means "normal", "routine", "commonplace".

From American Heritage Dictionary:

1 - Appropriate for ordinary days or routine occasions: a suit for everyday wear.
2 - Commonplace; ordinary: everyday worries.

Well, goulash certainly is Hungarian, but the word is more than just an allusion to something Hungarian. Goulash is a stew-like dish with chunks of meat, vegetables, lots of paprika, etc; a very non-homogeneous mixture. Thus, the word goulash has come to be a metaphor for a mixture of things, especially a varied mixture. Goulash communism / democracy describes the alteration of the Hungarian economic system during and after the fall of communism. Specifically the contrast of a market vs. command economy as a quasi-free market was adopted. For more details look at:

http://www2.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/hungary.htm

and

http://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/95-97/sroka.pdf

O’clock

June 2, 2006, 10:09am

"what time is it?"

"ten to."

"ten to what?"

"tend to your own business!"

most unique

May 30, 2006, 2:02pm

OK, James, how about this?
"I did an experiment exposing ten fruit flies to high levels of radiation. The offspring of one was unique in that its eyes were an unusual shade of pink. The offspring of another was most unique in that it grew to a weight of 300 pounds and ate two of my lab assistants."
You may or may not find it grammatical, but I think it illustrates Chris's point.

Also, see dictionary.com:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=unique

The usage note at the bottom discusses this issue quite well.

Eels’ or Eels’s?

May 21, 2006, 12:11pm

You know what I really wish? I wish there was a moderator for this website that would delete all those spam postings like the posting above. It should be possible to have a moderator who would not change postings based on content or ideas, but just eliminate all the spam.