> beshit v. (also beshite) [Old English bescítan] = becack vb. (Obsolete in polite use, but common in Middle English and early modern English literature). a1000 in B. A. Wright & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab. (1884) I. 507 Caccabatum, besciten. a1300 K. Alis. 5485 Bishiten and bydagged foule. 1681 J. Oldham Satyrs upon Jesuits 84 Flies which would the Deity beshite. 1716 Pope Further Acct. E. Curll 15 I have been frighted, pump'd, kick'd..and beshitten.
O how much more euphonious is becacked than beshitten!
I guess the poster’s bescumber synonym is less obvious than either of those.
I'm writing about the concept of "that which may prevent the intended or desired result". I refer to it frequently and it's very inconvenient to define it every time so I need to find a phrase or (preferably) single word to use as a label for it.
I've considered terms like "obstacle" or "challen...
In the context,
What warranted such a punishment?
what is another word for warranted that is particularly informal or juvenile, and stresses that characteristic?
Is there a word for theoretically informed action? Apologies if obvious, not from google.
I want to say "theoretically informed action is action" (I know it sounds like a trivial assertion).
The English singular noun "door" translates into Polish as "drzwi", which is a plural noun with no singular form (or whose singular form is not used).
To me, as an English speaker, a door is clearly a single object that does not break down into components in any obvious way.
Does English have any nouns which use a plural form to refer to a single object, where an English speaker would not think of it as having multiple parts that are being referred to?
Some non-examples are scissors, pants, and sunglasses. It seems clear to me what a scissor, a pant, and a sunglass would be.
(Indeed, I recently used the phrase "a sunglass" to mean "a lens from a pair of sunglasses".)
More non-examples are bellows and gallows; those are both singular forms.
The best example I've found so far is bowels.
As far as I know, a person's bowels are just one thing, and it's not clear at all what a bowel would be.
But, on the other hand, Wiktionary seems to suggest that her bowels means her small intestine and her large intestine, and so a bowel of hers would mean either just the small one or just the large one.
There are things such as the measles and the blues, but those aren't actually objects.
Aha, I think I've finally found a perfect example. Remains, meaning corpse.
A person's remains are never referred to as a remain or a remains, and they're a singular physical object, and there is no clear possibility for what a remain could be.
I'm guessing that the reason English doesn't seem to have many of these words is that whenever it does have one, people will want to refer to it in the singular, and so they will use the word as a singular noun.
"Remains" may have resisted this because whenever you want to refer to one of those in the singular, you can call it "a corpse" rather than "a remains".
A: "Hey Jack. How were your classes this semester?" B: "They were not too bad. I really liked my poli-sci class." A: "Would you consider it your favorite class?" B: "I don't know if I would call it my favorite, but it ranks up there."
In Russian there is a jargon word "дрищ" (~ dreeshch) that usually (depending on the context) means either diarrhea or an extremely lean, usually undermuscled person, something like the one on the picture below (not necessarily undermuscled this severely). Is there an analogous word in English?
I would like to see what is the closest word I can get that means vulnerable to the elements. One word is preferred, as opposed to a phrase. Here is a basic example:
Steel is ____________, but titanium is not ____________.
Ideally the word is not only relevant to corrosion like in the above...
I am tasked with choosing a word that contains both the domains of repairing a mechanical device and mechanical manipulation. There are cases where something is not broken (not needing repair) but it can still be manipulated.
"Wrenches are tools that provide ______ functionality."
We can r...
It's a shame people are downvoting this answer. They are certainly not doing so based on its content. The english.stackexchange.com culture is a strange one. Re: submitting the citation to OED, I will once I figure out how. — rojo5 mins ago
@TannerSwett maybe in Poland there was at one time the habit of building entrances to rooms using two parts one on each side (analogous to 'pants' or 'scissors'), and the word for that just became the popular word for any entrance mechanism and kept the plural marker even though it's not generically plural. Hypotheticlly.
@JBis There are no stupid questions. For examples:
For example, my SO always talks about getting all of these tattoos, but then never does. Or, I talk about how I want to go on all of these world-travelling adventures, but then never do. Looking for more than "lacking follow-through."
When contacting different departments of companies many will end an email/letter with something like
Sincerely,
The [Company Name] Support Team.
additionally they will refer to themselves as "we"
We don't have any further information on this.
We are working on a fix.
If th...
@MattE.Эллен True story: my MiL was telling us about how when one time she was visiting some place in the South, that she same across a store front that had a sign for a KKK meeting place or something like that. The thing is she referred to it as 'triple K'. As in, "You know, those triple K members are not all terrible people. It's an excuse to have friends get together.".
> They were a matched set, like March hares and marzipan, the Cassini Gap and the Cumberland Gap, St. Paul’s and Mrs. Paul’s, lighting bugs and lightning. Who can think of one without the other?
I have a question. Is there some hidden humour in "St. Paul's and Mrs. Paul's"?
@MattE.Эллен Did you... wait... that's some coincidence. Today in history, in 1034, Cnut did give a royal charter to particular farmers to grow the things.
First, some background. My wife and I dated for 9 years before we got married. We've been married 19 years, so we've been together for a total of 28 years.
I am running for my local school board and needed to come up with a candidate statement to be printed in the voter guide. There is a stri...
@Robusto that is a new way? I for one learned to improvise on the violin before I learned to read the sheet music.
I understand that guy's frustration very well. Spending all your life only playing other people's notes is best left to robots. The purpose of humans is to create, not recite. The current education system does fail to reflect that, but it's not just the current education system. It's been that way for two hundred years now. A bummer, yes.
@MattE.Эллен What? I never make things up. Check the reference.
What I did do is learn that Cnut was 1) the father of the guys who screwed up things before the Normans invaded (Why did the Normans speaking French instead of Norse/Viking? ... don't answer that. it could lead to things), and 2) he was greater than Alfred the Great because Cnut was king of England, then he added on King of Denmark, then he added on King of Norway, all when under the age of 40. That was Great.
3) Cnut and Alfred were separated by hundreds of years, or rather about a hundred so while I didn't actually think they were friends I though maybe one might have been at the others baptism or something.
> The Vikings started to raid the Seine valley during the middle of the 9th century. As early as 841, a Viking fleet appeared at the mouth of the Seine, the principal route by which they entered the kingdom.[7] After attacking and destroying monasteries, including one at Jumièges, they took advantage of the power vacuum created by the disintegration of Charlemagne's empire to take northern France. The fiefdom of Normandy was created for the Viking leader Hrólfr Ragnvaldsson, or Rollo (also known as Robert of Normandy). Rollo had besieged Paris but in 911 entered vassalage to the king of the…
@Cerberus So what I'm saying is that they were all weak leaders and should have the title 'Great' stripped from them. All their empires fell after they died. Cnut the Pretty Good. Charlepasmagnemaispassipetit. They had good marketing, I'll grant that.
@Cerberus Oh. You could answer it if you want. I don't think anyone will be embarrassed.
What would we call a person who has a hard time throwing away unnecessary things, and, as a result, has a home cluttered with stuff?
This person is not just untidy. What causes the clutter is their urge to buy things they don't need and not being able to get rid of things they don't use.
I thi...
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/jest The original sense was ‘heroic deed’, hence ‘a narrative of such deeds’ What did they mean by this 'hence "a narrative of such deeds"'? Is it a common phrase? Does some common phrase mean this? Or what?
I guess I could've asked on ELL but it's a bit too vague a question
Is there a word for theoretically informed action? Apologies if obvious, not from google.
I want to say "theoretically informed action is action" (I know it sounds like a trivial assertion).
In Russian there is a jargon word "дрищ" (~ dreeshch) that usually (depending on the context) means either diarrhea or an extremely lean, usually undermuscled person, something like the one on the picture below (not necessarily undermuscled this severely). Is there an analogous word in English?
Is there a word or phrase for someone who is sure of himself, someone who acts like everything they say is a fact even when it's not.
I would like to see what is the closest word I can get that means vulnerable to the elements. One word is preferred, as opposed to a phrase. Here is a basic example:
Steel is ____________, but titanium is not ____________.
Ideally the word is not only relevant to corrosion like in the above...
For example, my SO always talks about getting all of these tattoos, but then never does. Or, I talk about how I want to go on all of these world-travelling adventures, but then never do. Looking for more than "lacking follow-through."
When contacting different departments of companies many will end an email/letter with something like
Sincerely,
The [Company Name] Support Team.
additionally they will refer to themselves as "we"
We don't have any further information on this.
We are working on a fix.
If th...
Topic: Buying things on the Internet, such as books, air tickets and groceries, is becoming more and more popular. Nowad...
First, some background. My wife and I dated for 9 years before we got married. We've been married 19 years, so we've been together for a total of 28 years.
I am running for my local school board and needed to come up with a candidate statement to be printed in the voter guide. There is a stri...
UnqUEstIOnAblY
Unquestionably is the only word in the dictionary That contains the letters A&E IOU and Y
What would we call a person who has a hard time throwing away unnecessary things, and, as a result, has a home cluttered with stuff?
This person is not just untidy. What causes the clutter is their urge to buy things they don't need and not being able to get rid of things they don't use.
I thi...
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…