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Category: English
Could someone tell how electric power resembles juice?
The analogy is not with juice as in orange juice, as suggested by Dobhran Black’s answer to Could someone tell how electric power resembles juice?. Clearly there’s an analogy with fluids to be made; but why juice and not water? Or quicksilver? Or blood? The analogy is with vital juices, a concept that was kicking […]
How long would it take for English from anglophone countries to become separate languages?
I’m pretty much agreeing with Dmitriy Genzel’s answer: Dmitriy Genzel’s answer to How long would it take for English from anglophone countries to become separate languages?. If you look at my related answer to How long would it take an isolated group of people to develop what would be considered their own language?, you’ll see […]
The correct pronunciation of ‘H’ is aych, so why do people say ‘haytch’?
Is there a /h/ in aitch? No? Well, you won’t be surprised why someone thought it was a good idea to insert one, then. Every other letter names has something to do with the letter sound it represents. Even allowing for English orthography. Answered 2017-02-27 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/The-correct-pronunciation-of-H-is-aych-so-why-do-people-say-haytch/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
What is the plural of specimen?
The Latin plural is specimina. specimina – Wiktionary reports it as an alternative to specimens, but I have never seen it used. The examples it gives are from a 1949 textbook on colour perception. Answered 2017-02-27 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-is-the-plural-of-specimen/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
In Early Modern English the pronunciation of “housewifery” was /’ʔɤzɪfɹəi/. What caused the apparent (partial) reversal in modern pronunciation?
Why did housewifery used to be pronounced uzzifrie, and now it’s pronounced house-wife-ree? Well, let’s look at housewife itself. I’m looking up OED. OED reports that the usual pronunciation in the second half of the 18th century of housewife, as given in pronunciation dictionaries, was /ˈhʌzwɪf/, huzzwiff, with its start matching hus-band (which has the […]
Why is this language still called English, when the majority of its speakers are not even English?
It’s a good question, Mehrdad, and it deserves a serious answer. Language has functioned as a cohesive social force, much longer than the nation state has. Language has long bound people within an ethnic group, and those outside the ethnic group who also speak it. Language, it is true, is emblematic of ethnic groups, and […]
Is “how much am I owing you” grammatically correct?
The only correct answer here is from Andrew McKenzie; however he has left it a bit brief, and I’m happy to elaborate a bit more. English divides verbs between dynamic and stative. See Stative verb – Wikipedia. Dynamic verbs are verbs that can be put in the progressive (be doing); stative verbs normally cannot. So […]
From a stylebook perspective, what are the rules behind using asterisks and/or grawlixes to replace certain letters in curse words?
Unfortunately I don’t have style books to hand, but practice on this has varied in English. 100 years ago, the convention was to write only the first and the last letter of the obscenity, and to put dashes between them: d—d. The contemporary practices I have seen are to put ellipses between the first and […]
What is a fetish for being bitten called?
I draw attention to Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is it called when you get aroused by watching people die? as my credentials for answering this. Especially my line: Is not knowing shit about Classical languages a prerequisite for sexologists?! It is, and I’m not finding the bite fetish in Aggrawal’s exorbitantly misspelled listing of […]
Is English a fascist language?
Arguendo, let’s accept your premisses: Everybody expects non native speakers to know English and speak it fluently and hate them for not doing so. Also this language is invading all other ones. That wouldn’t make English fascist, and using a loaded term like that inaccurately means people won’t take your argument seriously. (And that’s not […]