I'm writing a technical guide and trying to define 'reader' as it relates to the subject of the guide. The reader(s) is/are the user(s) who view the content. How do I get rid of all those conditionals? I've also considered, The reader or readers are the users who view the content. .....

Consider the following sentence: We assume that the individual(s) possesses some general knowledge of the rules of football. Is "possesses" correct there? Should it be "possess"? Is the rule more complex than always using one or the other?

Possible Duplicate: When a sentence uses an optional plural, should the rest of the sentence treat it as singular or plural? When there is a possibility one is referring to a plural or a singular and makes so apparent using (s) like: The computer(s) are on. Should 'are' or 'is' be used?

Another (bad) example: Could anyone please explain this joke - I just don't get it... I do not feel that "explain this joke to me" should be on topic on a site ostensibly for linguists, etymologists, and (serious) English language enthusiasts In fact, I feel such questions degrade the...

In Catholicism (and indeed many other branches of Christianity), the six weeks leading up to Easter are a time of contemplation and purification before the major festival. This period is known as Lent, and it is common to deny oneself something (say, sweets, chocolate, or playing computer games) ...

A joke goes like this: A friend at work had an unusual dental related problem recently. About a month ago he had to have a small steel plate inserted in his mouth. A week later he noticed the plate was starting to rust. The dentist asked him if he had a change in his eating or drinking habits tha...

In Catholicism (and indeed many other branches of Christianity), the six weeks leading up to Easter are a time of contemplation and purification before the major festival. This period is known as Lent, and it is common to deny oneself something (say, sweets, chocolate, or playing computer games) ...

This is a joke from the TV series "Friends". — Can I borrow this? My milk's gone bad. — I hate that. I once had a thing of half-and-half. Stole my car. I'm thinking that it has something to do with the ambiguity of "gone bad", but I don't understand what "I once had a thing of half-and-ha...

I'm reading Will Ferrell's Twitter where he wrote Just thought a thought but the thought I thought wasn't the thought I thought I thought. Does the sentence still have the same meaning if you remove the last "I thought"? Is this grammatical word play possible with other words? Is ther...

I know "temporal" means "to do with time", but I'm looking specifically for a term that means "spanning time" or "over time". Not necessarily all time, as "eternal" would mean, nor do I want to necessarily imply anything about the span of time (e.g. being long or short). Upon reflection, I guess...

I need a new word or, even better, an old word that I don't know. This gets terribly meta (in a Hofstadter sense) and recursive, so I hope that this makes sense. The word I need is one that describes a word that embodies a concept. So, for example, a mouse is a small furry rat, but in a lab some...

In a song video made by an American acquaintance, there is a joke that I don't understand. I am not a native speaker, and I guess most English speakers would understand what makes his joke funny. Is it on-topic to ask what is the meaning of his play on words? As asked by Jeff, here is some c...