I don't mind questions of the form "What words work in this context?" "Is there a word that can be used for both add and remove (i.e. from a set)?" seems perfectly fine. What bugs me is that they don't mention programming until after answers come back that don't work in a programming context. The...

Sasha: Welcome to EL&U (and I mean that sincerely). When I was in school, there was a common refrain: there's no such thing as a stupid question. The sentiment was, if you are confused about something, you shouldn't be afraid to ask. I still believe that's true – there's no such thing as a stup...

ELU is a site intended for "serious linguists." Over time, many non-native speakers stumbled across ELU, and would ask questions that native speakers considered very basic. This caused mixed feelings: on one hand, as the board became flooded with more and more basic and trivial questions, some us...

There is nothing wrong with that, quite the opposite. In fact you can even win a nice shiny badge by reviving and answering an old question!

Sally's presence/involvement is the kiss of death. Jay's "born loser" is close but I think of that as mostly bringing ruin to the loser himself, while you seem to be looking for a term for someone who causes ruin to others.

It was Steve Jobs's ending comment in the Stanford Commencement in 2005, and Jobs mentioned: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. What does this phrase mean? I understand this may also seem philosophical, but when studying English, often we not only study the words, but we often study what the mean...

Edit I should have checked the OED3; it has significantly expanded its treatment. They seem much more certain now, citing three distinct origins, then following that up with significant discussion in their finest print, and then their four distinct senses. Skip the fine print the first time yo...

Who says we don't? Have you listened to rap or hip-hop lately? Anglo-Saxon poetry like Beowulf was heavily beat-based and while it didn't involve rhyme it used alliteration instead. The lines were recited to four stressed beats to a line with a coesura halfway between each one. I have long consid...

For example, therapist may be split into the + rapist, neither of which (arguably) has anything to do with the original words. Another example would be conflagration: con + flag + ration. Or weather: we + at + her. Note that words like threesome and purebred would not qualify, because the part...

If I understand the etymology of pedophile and pederast, both mean child lover. Is there a difference in their connotation? In some recent local news stories that discuss changing sex offender laws, the controversy has centered around dividing the pedophiles and the rapists from the more questi...

It is more common today to ask for someone than to ask after them, but it means the same thing. It means to inquire or make inquiries regarding that person. The OED says you will still encounter ask after someone in dialect use, but it has for the most part been replaced by asking for someone. ...