Oops, I missed that the question asked about candles as well as stars. That makes it clear that a technical term would be inappropriate, I guess.

So I deleted my unhelpful answer and voted up the other one

Variable star is a neat term, though. It's also the title of a relatively recent SF novel

I think most people have probably heard the term before

I noticed that, too

Not necessarily, but it could be used to that effect

I've done a lot of work today. [I only have a little bit left to do.]

I didn't read the answer in question

That answer is wrong, I'm afraid. He's mixed up the verb do with the derived adjective done

0 × 1 = 0

This comment has two upvotes. What do you suppose it's trying to say?

Oh, "Only judges sentence". I misread it as "Only judge sentences"

So we both read it wrong!

I changed the question to "Did I write this sentence correctly?"

I can't figure out what the best verb there is.

KCH suggests phrase or construct

Would that be better?

There, I changed it to "Have I phrased this sentence correctly?"

> It's hard to answer your question, mostly because the use of parentheses in this sense is strongly discouraged in formal written English.

Really? Dang, I never knew that!

Ooh, "in this sense".

What sense is it?

It looks like an appositive phrase

Appositive is one of the few grammar words I learned in school.

I tripped over job prospecting letter for a moment

I haven't had caffeine yet, so my brain may still be operating at 0% instead of its usual 5% power

sips tea

I can't judge that construction with the placeholders there.

We'll never know. Most people use 100% of their brains, but me, I'm too lazy.

(If I used more than 5% of my brain, I'd be able to tell that the 5% number is wrong, but I don't, so I can't.)

I'm just ragging on myself for misreading just about every sentence I've come across today. If that's not a sign of something-or-other, I don't know what is.

That's my favorite excuse! But it's okay. I'm having some tea right now!

I fed my snails earlier. They were all asleep.

Maulik's deleted answer seems to make a decent point: write The Coca-Cola Company but Microsoft Corporation because those are their official names.

Although informally people might just say Coca-Cola and Microsoft

And you can tell why the is there in The Coca-Cola Company: they make a product called Coca-Cola

Microsoft doesn't make Microsoft, so it makes sense that their name isn't ?The Microsoft Corporation

This is my picture of a sleeping snail: @zZzZ

Here's a Japanese snail: ＿＠＿レ

And a little American snail: _@_v

Baby snail: o,

@DamkerngT. Makes sense.

Their official names are set in stone, so talking about the details there is mostly a matter of etymology

And when people name stuff, they don't always follow rules that make sense.

Although we're aware of the individual words: "The only Coca-Cola company I know is The Coca-Cola Company"

Which is a terrible name.

I don't know why we say zzz either.

We also say sawing logs.

And I think they might be related, two descriptions of the same snoring sound.

But neither seems terribly accurate in my mind

I made another cup of tea and sliced a red apple. Hooray!

I always take onomatopoeia as being uncountable.

Well, yes. It's an English word. I'm describing English.

People do use it countably sometimes.

But I always take it as being uncountable.

It's also a non-English word.

Is that what you meant, or were you trying to equate the concept cross-lingually with the grammatical properties of the English word?

Latin/Greek

Look at the cognates in this chart: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/onomatopoeia#Translations

@Cerberus You and some other people!

Since Japanese has words that are mimetic of non-sounds (of psychological states, of non-auditory senses and feelings), I've gotten in the habit of using phrases like "mimetic words" instead

Most people seem to call words like that "onomatopoeia", but then other people argue that it should only be applied to mimesis of sounds

The "& Usage" will get cropped off. They aren't adding that to any new sites.

@DamkerngT. I've had a hard time learning mimetic words in Japanese.

They seem to make intuitive sense to Japanese, so some people try to make observations about what sorts of sounds are associated with what sorts of concepts, feelings, and so forth.

Kind of like kiki-bouba in English.