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3:38 AM
0
Q: Is there a word that means "to hit with the head"?

alexExample sentence: When the train halted in the next station, someone behind me lost balance and __ my spine. At first, I wanted to use headbutt but the definition is: an aggressive and forceful thrust with the top of the head into the face or body of another person. Source I tri...

single-word-requests
 
 
2 hours later…
Feeds
Feeds
5:51 AM
-1
Q: A word for "Fighting over who treats the other in a restaurant"

S AdamWhen 2 friends go to dine at some restaurant and then each one wants to pay the whole bill, fighting in a friendly way over who does and each saying "I'll treat you to this one" - "Oh, no way! It's my treat this time!", what do you call that situation in English? e.g. "They kept 'WORD/EXPRESSION...

single-word-requests expressions
 
Feeds
Feeds
6:37 AM
0
Q: Is there a word or expression for someone who prefers "small-group ministries"?

ExplorerI am looking a one-word or expression for someone who is most likely an introvert and prefers small group ministries. This person is not a loner and is okay with hanging out with groups, provided there are fewer than 4 people in the group.

single-word-requests synonyms expression-requests
 
 
4 hours later…
Feeds
Feeds
10:27 AM
0
Q: Failure to fix a problem, despite claiming to

LorIs there a word for a product or service that promises to fix a problem but doesn't work?

single-word-requests phrases
 
 
2 hours later…
user104729
user104729
12:19 PM
@Gary Thank you for your suggestion.
It looks very interesting to me.
 
 
2 hours later…
Feeds
Feeds
2:24 PM
0
Q: Is there a word or phrase to describe unnecessary details?

SabrinaPreferably in a more idiomatic kind of way. I was thinking 'chaff', as in 'to separate the wheat from the chaff' (to separate the important details from the unnecessary ones), but am I right in thinking that that's used more in terms of people?

single-word-requests phrase-requests
 
Mitch
Mitch
I think I would have 1 of 2 reactions: scream...or
I think I might laugh too
Does that make me a bad person?
 
user685252
user685252
2:40 PM
no
Nov 19 at 17:34, by skullpatrol
All hail the Great Satan ;-)
there are no good Satans
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
2:56 PM
only great ones
@Mitch you do sound kinda judgey
 
Mitch
Mitch
@MattE.Эллен Well, if we want to go there, yeah, Satan is sort of a bad influence, but laying all the blame on him is scapegoating. People should take a look in the mirror.
Take a little responsibility themselves. I'm not naming names
You know who you are
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
I do know who I am! I'm glad about that.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Self knowledge is the first step
and.. relatives just showed up
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
do you have enough turkey for all of them, or will you ask them all to go back to work?
Mitcheneezer
 
tchrist
tchrist
I need to write a meta post about why we use phonetics on ELU to describe pronunciations.
Although this is obvious to people coming to English from other languages, or to people who've studied either linguistics or other languages, to English speakers who've never known any other way than spelling out English words, it is not always obvious why we can't use spellings to indicate pronunciation in English.
Googling for "why use international phonetic alphabet" turns up a half-dozen articles from various language sites that have had to make the same case to their readers.
> The one-sentence answer is “to describe how something is pronounced”.
NPR had a clip yesterday talking about the current glut in the market of cranberry production. The interviewer was saying "a different word" than the people he was interviewing. Most cranberry production comes from Wisconsin and Massachusetts, but the interviewer did not.
And what different word is that, you ask?
The people he was interviewing necessarily mentioned cranberry bogs like fallen logs, but the interviewer would say cranberry bahgs like fallen lahgs, and the mismatch was weird. Doubtless the interviewer has a merger that made him unable to hear that he wasn't saying the same word as the people he was talking to were saying. It stood out.
This also demonstrates how mournfully inadequate it is to describe these things using English spellings. What I've just had to write there on the immediately previous line doesn't really make much sense as written there, at least to many people, who will of course read all those with their own versions in their head, not with the sounds I'm talking about.
/bɑːg/ isn’t /bɒg/ let alone /bɔːg/, just as /bɑːg/ isn’t /bæg/ let alone /bɛg/.
And there is simply no way to express what I just wrote without using phonetics.
For the most part, consonants are straightforward, but vowels are impossible.
I’ve used slashes there because I'm talking about broad phonemic differences that make something "a different word". The actual phonetics of some of those can vary in ways that are too fancy for casual use, via regional allophones which don’t change which word was said. For example, the "/æ/ tensing" that makes /æ/ from bag /bæg/ come out as [eə̯] or even [ɛə̯] in many North American speakers, with curious centralizing diphthongs.
Moreover, there are even regions that have phonemic rather than phonetic /æ/ tensing.
> in much of the Midwest and some of the Pacific Northwest, this extends to the point that /æ/ even merges with /eɪ/, so that bag, for example, rhymes with plague or vague.
Yeah, that's weird.
The Wikipedia article mentions only North American instances of /æ/ tensing. I’d be surprised if no version of this ever happened in any of the myriad accents to be found in Britain and Ireland.
Haven't thought about that much, though.
In the Deep South, even ham can be two syllables: ['hɛ.(j)əm].
Learning enough IPA for simple English phonemic representations takes maybe five or ten minutes tops, no more than learning any dictionary's pronunciation key. Learning enough for small and subtle dialectal phonetics isn’t something that everybody would ever have to do.
2
I guess related UK issues might be those involving the TRAP–BATH split and the bad–lad split.
I need to hear a Scottish accent pronouncing words like gate and mate.
Maybe Irish, too.
 
Feeds
Feeds
4:25 PM
 
Feeds
Feeds
5:08 PM
1
Q: Generic word for any kind of unit inside the company

CowperKettleI'm translating a document template, to be filled out later for specific purposes. It has a table in the beginning which indicates who exactly produced a particular document. In the first line of the table, we have Подразделение: наименование "Подразделение" is literally "subdivisio...

single-word-requests translation
 
Mitch
Mitch
5:41 PM
@MattE.Эллен and...relatives just left
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
@Mitch if you gave them presents, one might call you a relative Claus. ho ho ho
 
Mitch
Mitch
yes, enough turkey.
meals were planned with engineering efficiency: spreadsheets, gantt charts, resource allocations provisions. all time and resources accounted for with slack variables and constraints specified with confidence intervals.
and times set aside for spontaneity
@MattE.Эллен hahaha.
groans
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
@Mitch noöne likes unexpected surprises
@Mitch takes it to the bank
 
Feeds
Feeds
0
Q: Terms for name prefixes "Ms., Mr." vs "Prof., Dr."

AskagaI'm searching for two words that adequately describe and differentiate between the following two categories/groups of words, given they exist in english: Ms, Mr, Mrs, Miss etc. Dr, Prof, Revd etc. Background is that I have to store this data in a database for both english and non-english pers...

single-word-requests terminology names
 
tchrist
tchrist
Guppies in your sink again. Cops who sing while peeing.
Fainting with damned praise.
Offbeat rhythms.
 
Mitch
Mitch
6:00 PM
@tchrist Timing is...
 
tchrist
tchrist
@Mitch Sunken peas.
 
Mitch
Mitch
..everything
 
tchrist
tchrist
> sink-cup-pee sing-cuppy sing-cop-ee sink-guppy sing-cop-pea sing-cop-pee sink-a-pee sink-cuppy sin-cup-pee sin-cop-pee sink-cup-pea sink-uppy sin-cuppy sin-cup-pea sin-cop-ee sink-a-pea sin-cup-ee sink-cop-pee sink-cop-pea sing-cup-pee sin-coppy sink-coppy sink-up-pee sink-up-pea sing-cup-pea sin-cop-pea sing-coppy
Go ahead, pick one: I'll tell you why you chose wrong.
 
Mitch
Mitch
How about that one? The one in the middle.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
sin-co-pay
 
Mitch
Mitch
6:03 PM
the one that's barking and chasing its tail.
@MattE.Эллен My doctor tried that on me.
When I came to, all my buttons were buttoned wrong
 
tchrist
tchrist
@MattE.Эллен Oh that's good!
 
Mitch
Mitch
can-of-peas
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
@Mitch and you've never walked the same since
 
Mitch
Mitch
canapés
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
@Mitch is that like orderves?
 
Mitch
Mitch
6:05 PM
@MattE.Эллен eww. but yes.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
@tchrist happy to oblige :D
 
Mitch
Mitch
how do you get all those little peas on the toothpick?
 
tchrist
tchrist
Brings to mind that new Taco Bell special, Cinco Pay.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
Cinco Pay? one for the price of five?
 
tchrist
tchrist
aye
Buy four, get one free.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
6:10 PM
ah!
reminds me of
Nov 6 at 12:22, by Davo
ELL post, but I thought it appropriate here. My question for the chat: does anyone recall a real-life advertising pitch where "7 for 3" is used, with the LARGER number first? I can only think of actual examples with the smaller number first. If this is the case, is it just herd mentality, or is there some historical, psychological, or other reason to put the lower number first? Thanks!
 
Færd
Færd
6:44 PM
> "Self-autonomy" emphasizes the application of the notion of autonomy to the self as opposed to others. Just as one can feel that others have confidence or efficacy, yet lack the sense that one has these attributes oneself, so one can feel that others have autonomy, yet have the sense that one lacks autonomy oneself. "Self-autonomy" puts the focus on attributing autonomy to oneself. It is best understood as "autonomy of oneself" in contradistinction to the autonomy of others.
I don't accept this argument. Any notion of authority, originality, or independence described in that answer seems to already exist in autonomy itself, making the self- a redundant appendage.
I caught myself saying self-autonomy today, and then started to fumble a justification for the usage, to no avail.
 
Mitch
Mitch
7:18 PM
@Færd I wasn't reading at first and just saw 'self-autonomy' and thought :"that's ...
Idiotic"
 
Færd
Færd
7:49 PM
@Mitch Thanks, I guess!
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
8:02 PM
people do that a lot in English. I think it's like reduplication, but slightly different. Pleonasm? Tautology?
Pleonasm
Pleonasm (; from Greek , from , meaning 'more, too much') is the use of more words or parts of words than are necessary or sufficient for clear expression: for example black darkness or burning fire. Such redundancy is, by traditional rhetorical criteria, a manifestation of tautology. However, pleonasm may also be used for emphasis, or because the phrase has already become established in a certain form. == Usage == Often, pleonasm is understood to mean a word or phrase which is useless, clichéd, or repetitive, but a pleonasm can also be simply an unremarkable use of idiom. It can aid in achieving...
It seems to be a semantic pleonasm
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Færd which is to say I agree with you. That justification is justifisilly
@MattE.Эллен wait... are there other kinds of pleonasms?
Did you just...
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
@Mitch syntactic and something or other that I've forgotten
 
Mitch
Mitch
logical pleonasm? structural pleonasm? ooh... organic pleonasm. I don't know what that could possibly be but it sounds like it's something
hm.. maybe something dirty though. Like 'mitigate'
mitigating circumstaces... did someone ..; just... pee on them?
@MattE.Эллен ugh I had to read the wiki article then. I only ever thought of pleonasm as the semantic kind. There others as redundancy or syntactically optional.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
8:27 PM
@Mitch reading wiki articles?! whatever next? answering questions on EL&U?
> I have a fire burning inside of me!
> Well, it wouldn't be a fire if it wasn't burning.
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
9:19 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected: Did they saw/see? by EvilWitch on english.SE
 
Feeds
Feeds
10:07 PM
0
Q: What's a word or phrase that means handle, fix or solve something once?

Burton KentI'd like to imply that when clients hire me, their problem will be solved. Perhaps because I've already solved the same problem before.

single-word-requests phrase-requests
 
 
1 hour later…
Feeds
Feeds
11:28 PM
0
Q: Of or pertaining to a "definition"

socratesI want to contrast two words, such as "sport", and "good sport", and demonstrate how the meaning of the latter differs from the former. Unlike "sport" in the definitive sense, "good sport" means ... By using "definitive", I am trying to refer to how "sport" would be defined in the diction...

single-word-requests
 
Gary
Gary
11:47 PM
hi anyone awake
 

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