> He wrote to his mother; otherwise he did not suppose he wrote one letter a month, said Mr Tansley, shortly. For he was not going to talk the sort of rot these condescended to by these silly women.
@Færd Keeping in mind the broader context I'd suppose the paragraphs were split poorly and the antecedent is supposed to be letters, with the implication that love letters are full of airy nothings.
It makes it all the worse if you're compelled to engage in small-talk regarding matters you disdain. Surely the circumstances that compelled his attendance also force his had to make some minimal attempt to be sociable.
@Færd He was just asked a question about letters the moment before, and the last time they were mentioned his thoughts were, may I say, impolite? I'm not sure what other plural antecedent exists on the page, esp. since "these" is not a personal pronoun. Is there some other reason he might...
I saw this in the Maid Cafe, and figured that perhaps one of you folk might be interested in the question, or might know how to tip-off somebody who would be:
When I watch Anime, I notice that Japanese English pronunciation is really bad, they twist all the sounds, and they can't pronounce sounds like "L". I think English is the easiest language when it comes to pronunciation, and I don’t think it has something related to their native language, as for ...
To take something as gospel means to take something as absolute truth. That's an expression, yes.
But "to take something as gospel overgerund" doesn't make much sense. I would understand "don't take A as gospel over B" but, while understandable, that is still a strange choice of words.
If you really want to use the gospel phrase, you could say something like Don't take this feedback as gospel or as meaning that you shouldn't try for . . .
How lexicographers say they do it: "We pour years of original research into deciding whether or not a word is used often enough to be included in our dictionary." How lexicographers really do it: We just copy whatever words Oxford has.
@terdon That's funny, but I'm basing my assessment on the fact that the O.E.D. 2nd Ed. is the first formal dictionary to have the pejorative sense of douche-bag. Merriam-Webster only followed suit after. Funnily enough, the O.E.D. 2 seems to cite American Speech definitions as some of the earliest recorded instances of words, although O.E.D. 3 (The updates on the website) seem to have made new discoveries since then (I'm not necessarily talking about douche-bag here).
@MattE.Эллен Have a little less faith in humanity than that! It's very possible that this is a hit 'n run incident by somebody who forgot their job involved cameras that photograph the street from every angle.
The OED comes in 20 volumes or 1 volume plus a magnifiying glass, but there are also 3 additions volumes.
The SOED removes words obsolete before 1700, and has only 85,000 quotations, not one for every sense.
It contains 600,000 senses.
A comparable American English dictionary would be Webster's Third New International Dictionary, which, though not updated thoroughly since 1961, has an addendum in front for new words and senses since then.
Hello @kit! I just returned to SE, lol. I hope you are doing well.
Did you know that today is Star Wars Day?
I got the association bonus because I am using an old email address, even though I have not gotten 200 points yet on any site.
@JamesBond Yes and no. You're forgetting that Oxford published four supplemental volumes between the first and second editions. Volume III contains the supplements. Only 5,000 words were added to the second edition, although apparently they had enough extra content overall for 5 or 6 extra volumes.
Most of the O.E.D. is quotations, and it has many more definitions per word than the usual dictionary too, so it's not too surprising I suppose.
@JamesBond Hmm, that is right, you did tell me you ordered S.O.E.D., had to return it to Amazon, then ordered it again off of book depository. Did you finally get it?
@Tonepoet Yes, and this time, although a few pages were printed faintly it was good enough so I kept it, and Amazon did return me the shipping fees as well which cost more than the book itself.
@JamesBond I have my doubts Jasper. Aside from the fact that their dictionaries are the oldest of their categories, Merriam-Webster is owned by the Britannica Inc. and they completely discontinued the printing of their namesake encyclopedia in favor of online only.
@MattE.Эллен I visit the LL website though for the free lessons there. The dialogues are helpful.
@MattE.Эллен Are you familiar with all the sounds in Greek? The first step in learning a language is to be familiar with all the sounds, especially those that are very different from English ones. I mean, the vowels and consonants.
@Mitch I have never tried HelloTalk. Is it an app or can I use it on my PC too? Btw is there an option to practice English with others for learners like me?
@JamesBond Thx for answering! Essentially it was a team who was preparing for tough exams and their despair was only temporarily settled by the sight of pizzas - that's the gist of my sentence
For some reason I want to say Our despair was quarmed by...
The exact word choice really depends on what you want to convey, and it cannot be made clear what you want to convey if the problem is the word choice itself. This is a problem with no solution. =)
@JamesBond Yeah, I use British English spellings mostly. But can't help use AmE sometimes too, because you see, all the TV shows etc. are made in Hollywood and I rarely watch Br stuff, and what I read is mostly AmE now. So can't really separate the two.
sorry if I'm chipping in instead of somebody else, but I'd say the first one is ok colloquially and the second is more appropriate for more formal conversations
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…