@KitFox I do interesting things, but I can't explain them to people in an interesting way. Like, I work making software for magnetic resonance spectrometers. What's not interesting about that? Well science scares people for one, so I need to figure how to work around that. And people still deride spending a lot of time online, but Stack Exchange is full of interesting stuff.
But Evan backs me as well, so, you know. That's. Cool. And stuff.
@MattЭллен Good lord. There's your problem right there.
But I remember that I felt that way when I was 26 or so, and that's when I started modelling nude and riding on motorcycles with strange men and stuff.
Is the below to preposition being correctly used or is it calling for a for preposition ?
Or is this a case of those where we could use either for or to interchangeably ?
Follows a modification to the current update to fix the issue.
What's the opposite of "This is the first time I am doing this". I am looking for something that can be used in place of sentences like "This is NOT the first time..." or "This is the (N)th time..." (N > 1)
I appreciate some help with the adjective / adverbs close(ly) and narrow(ly)
a. a close/narrow second
b. a close/narrow loss
c. a close/narrow escape
d. They closely / narrowly won
e. They closely / narrowly escaped
Could close or narrow or both be used in these sentences?
@MattЭллен Gee, now I'm almost embarrassed to say that I slay dragons and rescue damsels in distress for a living. My life pales by comparison with your magnetic resonance spectrometer software.
And do you realize how hard it is to find damsels in distress in these days of women's empowerment? Oftentimes they just brush me off, saying they can slay the dragons themselves. What's the world coming to?
Is the below to preposition being correctly used or is it calling for a for preposition ?
Or is this a case of those where we could use either for or to interchangeably ?
Follows a modification to the current update to fix the issue.
I figure JSB is not too present on the site for the hoi polloi. Comment-wise. (Tag edits are easily overwritten by any subsequent edits, and who cares about tag edits in the first place?) I mean, again, look at the total number of votes on all the candidates. Some people people just don't know.
Can anyone explain to me, why my question got closed as off topic ?
I was asking about how to pronounce this symbol, as I find it hard to Google for a "symbol"
How do you say the mathematical function in English:
x^y
I know ^ means 'power' or 'exponentiate', but that is the name of the operation, not how you pronounce its use.
If y = 2, it is 'x squared', y=3 then 'x cubed'. What if y is some other arbitrary number?
I have come across the word "cheersing", with an "s", as opposed to what I believe to be the correct form: cheering.
I think it comes from a misguided verbification of the exclamation "cheers!", as in the plural of the noun "cheer".
However since there is already a corresponding verb, "to cheer...
use your autocratic powers to remove crap like that -well- before closing (possibly needed, but I think not in this case) questions you think are basic.
actually, as Kit says, you shouldn't be closing things that much, voting should close most things and you should be holding back for more serious things.
the answer is '2 to the sixteen' or '2 to the sixteenth'. It's only in formal speech (which ironicaly is hardly ever in math) that you say '2 to the sixteenth power'. If variables are used it is more likely 'x to the y'.
There's nuance. It's not obvious. you can't find that on the web.
Is the reason to re-open the x^y question so that it elicits additional/better answers, or more to indicate that this is not the sort of thing that should be considered offtopic?
I asked a question recently (Send, sent; end, *ent?), which hasn’t yet received a straight answer. It leads me to wonder if questions about Old and Middle English are actually on-topic for this site; while it’s certainly acceptable for answers to draw on historical English to substantiate specula...
@MattЭллен We're talking about Shakespeare, Tindall, and the KJV, not Beowulf, Sir Gawain, or Chaucer. That makes it by definition (Early-)Modern English, not Middle English.
It just isn't CONTEMPORARY English; it's an historical form.
The references would say "two to the sixteenth power" but that is only don in very formal speech. Ironically, in actual mathematical usage, the formal usage is not that common.
The more common way to say it (in math class or in a mathematical presentation)
two to the sixteen
or
two to ...
@Mitch Barrie already said it is too long a topic to answer. An important problem is that EME was not standardized, and before standardization there were many many alternate variants for any of these. Yes, you can say that, to use just one example verb, tense, and person, it was mostly thou wast or thou wert in the 2nd-sg-past for most writers, and that wert was used through the 19c, but it is a rather long story. You can be short and hand-wavy, or long and ponderous and unreadable.
I can only do short and hand-wavy before I go to $job, so I was hoping Barrie or John might do a better job in the meanwhile. But I don't think Barrie fancies a go at it.
@Meysam Umm, you said n times, n is usually a relatively large numbers ( at least in Persian). You should have said epsilon. Why don't you say "This is not my first time doing this" or "this is my second/third time of doing this" or "I've done this a fair number of times"? But umpteen is fine.
Is the below to preposition being correctly used or is it calling for a for preposition ?
Or is this a case of those where we could use either for or to interchangeably ?
Follows a modification to the current update to fix the issue.
I appreciate some help with the adjective / adverbs close(ly) and narrow(ly)
a. a close/narrow second
b. a close/narrow loss
c. a close/narrow escape
d. They closely / narrowly won
e. They closely / narrowly escaped
Could close or narrow or both be used in these sentences?
I have come across the word "cheersing", with an "s", as opposed to what I believe to be the correct form: cheering.
I think it comes from a misguided verbification of the exclamation "cheers!", as in the plural of the noun "cheer".
However since there is already a corresponding verb, "to cheer...
How do I pronounce "ratio 1:1"?
Should I pronounce it "ratio 1 to 1"?
The references would say "two to the sixteenth power" but that is only don in very formal speech. Ironically, in actual mathematical usage, the formal usage is not that common.
The more common way to say it (in math class or in a mathematical presentation)
two to the sixteen
or
two to ...
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…
English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…