Messages

1

English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: July 16, 2021, 04:13:34 PM »

Ah, that makes sense. Though I'm curious how it ended up with a ph at the beginning. Just to differentiate it from "few" cause that seems a lot more considerate than English usually is.

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: July 15, 2021, 07:19:50 AM »

I have another question! What is the etymology of the word "phew". I just typed it a bunch of times in a conversation and so it suddenly looked incredibly bizarre to me. Is it just an onomatopoeia?

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: July 03, 2021, 08:56:15 AM »

thanks guys!

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: July 02, 2021, 01:50:01 PM »

Just had a debate with my friend about supplemental vs supplementary vs supplement. We were talking about angles that add up 180 degrees which I was calling supplemental and she asked if it should be supplementary. After some googling I came to the conclusion that either works and she came to the conclusion that it should be supplement (and that supplemental is the most wrong, based on the absence of "complemental", while "complimentary" does exist). I definitely don't think it should be supplement and the explanation I came up with is that supplement is a noun and supplemental/ary is an adjective; I can point to that angle and say "you're a supplement" but if I'm talking about all different kinds of angles, the ones that add up to 180 degrees are supplemental/ary angles. I don't know if that is actually the correct explanation because I'm very insecure about my knowledge of the parts of speech. So Jonathan, to distract you from your recent hearing loss, can you tell me if the grammatical difference between all three of those words?

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English & Linguistics / Re: The random etymology of the day

« on: September 11, 2019, 01:36:10 PM »

cool. Thank you!

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English & Linguistics / Re: The random etymology of the day

« on: September 11, 2019, 09:41:06 AM »

Jonathon, can you tell me how "gal" developed? is it short for something or just a mutation of girl?

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English & Linguistics / Re: New column-type thingy

« on: September 10, 2019, 07:41:44 AM »

what I'm getting at is shame on your coworkers. Shame. Shame. Shame.

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English & Linguistics / Re: New column-type thingy

« on: September 10, 2019, 07:41:20 AM »

A couple of years ago I finally caved and learned how to play D&D. I now get all the D&D jokes out there (I had no idea there were so many, incidentally). But before that I still found alignment chart memes funny. It's pretty self explanatory, even if you don't fully understand the context.

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English & Linguistics / Re: Gender Inclusive

« on: September 03, 2019, 02:59:30 PM »

the bridge and the ready room (bedroom and bathroom respectively)

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: September 03, 2019, 10:20:58 AM »

my friend just texted me asking what part of speech "ladies" is in the following sentence:
"That sounds fun, ladies"

I knew of a vocative comma, so I google that and found a site that says that the word is actually called a vocative. I wasn't sure I trusted a random website on the internets, so I was wondering if Jonathon could give me a rundown of what's going on?

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English & Linguistics / Re: Gender Inclusive

« on: September 03, 2019, 10:13:24 AM »

the fanciest bedroom/bath?
your favorite bedroom/bath?
the captain suite/bath?
the biggest bedroom and it's attached private water closet?

are any of these helpful?

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English & Linguistics / Re: The random etymology of the day

« on: November 03, 2018, 03:30:53 AM »

well, that at least makes me feel better about preferring to use it to mean twice a month, as my coworker was rather annoyingly superior about her insistence that semi-monthly was the only right option. She had this "oh, you're always so contrary and I'll humor you even though I know the correct answer" vibe that bugged the heck out of me.

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English & Linguistics / Re: The random etymology of the day

« on: November 02, 2018, 03:03:38 AM »

here I am for my sporadic venture to the other side of the forum that I always forget exists to ask an etymology question. Today I got into a discussion with my coworker about bimonthly as a term for every other month and/or twice a month. I was trying to tell a client that we would be calling him every other month and my coworker was like "that's bi-monthly" and I was like "yeah, but I've always preferred to think of that as twice a month" (same with bi-weekly). She replied that I was thinking of semi-monthly.

I know that you can use bi-monthly both ways, technically, but I was wondering if one of them is more correct?

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English & Linguistics / Re: The random etymology of the day

« on: August 11, 2015, 11:38:35 AM »

cool!  Thanks!

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English & Linguistics / Re: The random etymology of the day

« on: August 10, 2015, 03:00:04 PM »

oh hey!  It's time for my annual visit to the other wing of GC that I basically forget about the rest of the year. 

My friend just said she should use the word "vituperative" more often, and as I was looking it up in the OED I started wondering if it is at all related to "vitriol"....?

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: January 30, 2014, 11:51:03 AM »

thank you!

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: January 30, 2014, 09:43:31 AM »

my friend texted me this morning to ask me why he can say "take me home" but not "take me Salt Lake".  Besides making an inappropriate joke about the meaning of the second sentence without the preposition, I couldn't really give him a good answer as to why the first sentence didn't need the preposition beyond convention.  Can you give me a better explanation?

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: June 12, 2013, 08:09:43 AM »

See? I completely forgot I even posted on this half of the forum!  Anyway, thanks very much!

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: June 02, 2013, 09:18:28 AM »

I always forget that this half of the forum exists. 

So, linguistics gurus, I have a question:  is it more correct to say "for forever" or just "forever".  eg: "I would feel that lifting of the weight of school I get at the end of every year, but multiplied several times as I realized that I wasn't just done for the year, I was done [for?] forever!"

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: February 13, 2012, 11:52:51 AM »

Thank you!  That is very good to know! 

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: February 11, 2012, 11:15:04 PM »

he explained it much better, but I didn't understand and so paraphrased it really poorly.  I've never really understood the distinction.

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English & Linguistics / Re: Dear Expert

« on: February 11, 2012, 06:35:35 PM »

I pretty much forgot this half of the forum even exists.  Now the prospect of trying to catch up depresses me.  So I shan't.

I'm proof reading a friend's essay and he uses "whom" all over the place.  He says that in philosophy they use "whom" all the time because it helps to distinguish which person they're referring to when they write.  Anyway, in this particular phrase has he used "whom" correctly?

I would continue on in the prospect of honoring my family whom I loved so dearly

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English & Linguistics / Re: The random etymology of the day

« on: March 02, 2011, 09:55:11 PM »

We were just discussing the word "cleavage" because my roommate is writing a paper about social cleavages.  Needless to say, we mocked her for quite a while.  Anyway, the point is, we started wondering about how you can have cleavage and cleave that mean quite opposite things.  So i was wondering what the etymology is of those two words and how they're related and how they would have evolved to differently?

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English & Linguistics / Re: First impression

« on: February 04, 2011, 12:44:12 PM »

Also, Ellery = boy for the same reason Jesse said.  Ellery Queen will always be my favorite detective.  As a side note, I did not have a hard time accepting "Ellery" as a boy's name when I first read his books (as opposed to, say Ashley or Cortney...er...that guy off Law and Order with the superlatively girly name) so you can take that for what you will.

and BB, I think you're pronouncing it right

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English & Linguistics / Re: First impression

« on: February 04, 2011, 12:40:12 PM »

Annie's name is "Anneke Morgan M***".  She grew up as Morgan, only switching to "Anneke" when she came to college and her professors started calling her by it because that is what showed up on their roll.  Being the bashful girl that she can be now and then, she didn't want to correct them, so the name stuck.  Hence, she is referring to Morgan as the gender neutral name.