I use “that’ll do” in circumstances where I acknowledge that something is sufficient. What is a formal alternative for this phrase, that can take place in a formal letter or a conversation ? Context: There’s a party that asked for a couple of screenshots from my PC. I have the screenshots but due to a … Read more
I am writing an academic manuscript to describe the action of “digging certain stuff out.” For instance, given an image containing several pedestrians, my image analysis techniques can extract those pedestrians as separate small images. While “digging pedestrians out of the background image” seems legit, it sounds a bit too verbal to me. Therefore, I … Read more
I’ve been watching a crime TV anime show lately, and I’ve run into this fancy and maybe offensive too ( sorry about that, if it is like so ) and to put you guys in the scene context here is a summary: A rookie detective was assigned to save a hostage from a dangerous criminal, … Read more
I have recently seen the verb “telescope” applied in a mathematical context, as a synonym of “derive” or “compress”. Like in the following sentence: “This expression can be telescoped as follows:…” I was wondering if this usage is enough formal to be included for example in a scientific publication Answer The verb telescope in mathematics … Read more
1 – The president travels to Belo Horizonte tomorrow. 2 The president is going to travel to Belo Horizonte tomorrow. 3 The president is traveling to Belo Horizonte tomorrow. 4 The president will travel to Belo Horizonte tomorrow. Answer I would only add that, grammatically, they are identical: in each case the verb is intransitive, … Read more
I am looking for a more formal variation of this sentence: “We can only speculate at this point.” Perhaps what is taking away from the professional feel that I want is the first person “We.” Question Is there a more formal way to express this sentence, ideally by not using “we?” Answer You can write … Read more
I want to know if someone has eventually contacted my manager. I therefore want to send him a formal email to ask him very politely. Is it correct to write as follow ? “I would appreciate it if you could inform me anytime/when you could contact my manager.” Answer Neither of your examples really meet … Read more
I’m about to start a workshop and I’d like to have a “before we start” slide in which I’ll communicate: several prerequisites for attendees to better understand the content, set several boundaries in regards to content presented and its format, and perhaps some general notes as well. Roughly, something like: 1. This workshop assumes you … Read more
The word “Chronic” means “long lasting”, or “occurring over an extended period of time”. A chronic illness one that you will have for a long time (if not for your entire life), or take a long time to recover from. A short-lived, sharp/intense/severe illness would instead be referred to (in formal language) as “Acute“ However, … Read more
In recent times I have encountered the phrase ‘I was like…’ a lot. Examples include He told me something, and I was like dude really? I was going along the street, and suddenly something happened, and I was like WTF! Is this a correct form of English? If not what do you think is a … Read more
