[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer: How did "to lie" (i.e lie about something) and "to lie" (i.e. lie down) end up being spelled the same way? by Tia on english.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer, blacklisted user: How did "to lie" (i.e lie about something) and "to lie" (i.e. lie down) end up being spelled the same way? by Tia on english.SE

@terdon When I was a kid I used to think the Mormons called their religion the Church of Jesus Christ of the Ladder Day Saints, and I imagined they thought they would ascend into heaven on "Ladder Day." Hey, I was like nine or ten ...

Somebody in this chat room ought to know how commas actually work, and how they interact with the parts of speech better than I do in order to make the necessary edit if it's a non-issue. I mostly just use rhetorical punctuation (which you may better know as cheating with the breath rule =P), except with coordinating conjunctions, serial commas and sometimes introductory statements too.

Actually, strike that. I'm not really quite sure quite how I use commas. <_<

@AndrewLeach Oh, right, yeah, I vaguely remembered homework questions were allowed, but not the conditions under which they are allowed. Also, I hadn't actually thought to look further than the actual sentence in question. XD How do we handle attribution in this case anyway?

It seems like it is somewhere between a paraphrase and a direct quotation, so I'm not really sure how to edit the post to comply with our attribution policy.

@Tonepoet I think it would be wise to edit to add the required citation, and perhaps a link to the school webpage if not the Word document. That satisfies the citation requirement, and gives a hint as to the purpose of the question. I think it's obvious that the OP "came across" that sentence in that document.

Or at least, that sentence is highly likely to appear only there.

So I take that to mean leave the sentence as is, and treat it like a direct quotation. Is that right?

Either that, or add "Cf" to the citation ("Compare").

Shall I do what I'm suggesting?

Yes, I think that would be for the best. I've never used Cf before now and I'd be able to use your edit as an example of how to do it.

OK. How's that now? It's a bit unfortunate that the reference line is as long/appears as important as the quote itself.

@AndrewLeach One of these days, English Language & Usage needs to really come up with a good argument to allow the <small> tag. It is semantically correct to use it for attribution in HTML 5.

There's already a Meta question on allowing <cite> and CSS.

Also on MSE (link in comments on that answer).

@AndrewLeach That's an interesting proposal I've often used horizontal rules inside of block quotations to achieve a similar effect, although I would like my posts to be shorter when and if I do that. Right now I'm particularly interested in shorting the length of footnote lists. I like that method of citation because it allows for an unobstructed presentation, and allows people to skip reading them altogether to move onto the next post if they don't want to know.

@Robusto Heh, well that makes about as much sense as what they propose, after all. Come to think of it, possibly more.

A bed is put adjacent to a wall almost touching it along its length. Which preposition(al phrase) would you prefer for its position with respect to the wall? Up against it? beside it? opposite it? next to it? or what?

In particular, would it be felicitous to say it's opposite the wall?

@Færd 'against' is the most appropriate and what I would use almost always

Opposite would imply that the bed is on the other side of some space from the wall

Against means the bed is touching the wall. If the bed is not touching the wall, it is 'next' to the wall. Beside might work there too

clientsfromhell.net/post/267037983/the-magic-of-photoshop

Because there's nothing Photoshop can't do

I'm not sure why she wanted her dead husband facing the camera anyway. And why was his body in a boat?

@AndrewLeach He was bored to death while fishing

Or starved to death

So, not a good fisherman then.

Or maybe he was a high-priority terrorism target and he was shot by a sniper. O.O

clientsfromhell.net/post/258706226/…

clientsfromhell.net/post/258445767/lorem-ipsum -- Lorem ipsum sit dolor amet

@Mitch Thanks, 'cause I was helping a kid to do a fill-the-gap exercise on this picture:

Namely: "The bed is opposite ......... ."

And I was like, the bed is opposite nothing! But ultimately I told him maybe the wall.

@Færd the bed is opposite the chest of drawers, certainly. Context is everything

@Mitch Maybe too many things between them for opposite to work?

@Mitch I think it is unclear.

It could also be the wardrobe.

@Færd I agree.

@Færd I'm going to side with @mitch. It's the chest of drawers. The closet doesn't overlap with the bed entirely like the drawers, and if you were to say something was opposite the drawers, it would probably be the bed, wouldn't it?

Then again, perhaps I'm not the best person to be answering this question. Aside from unapologetically calling the wardrobe a closet, I also can't help but think that the child is going to grow up thinking trash-cans are desks, and getting fired from whatever future career he may have because he threw an important report away after being told to put his paperwork on it.

This diagram needs arrows.

Another musing I have is that he's going to be sleeping on chests his whole life. >_>