I recently got puzzled as to why American journalists spell the surname of the current Turkish president in articles written in English as Erdogan, with g (see, e.g., this article in New York Times). We spell his surname as エルドアン, which does not include the g sound. In the original language, Turkish, his surname is … Read more
Looking up this on English exchange I couldn’t seem to find a single source of truth: Instance 1 – "Prerequisite" in search: "Prerequisite for" vs. "prerequisite to" Instance 2 – "Pre-requisite" in search: Single word for "This task cannot proceed until these other tasks are completed first"? I suppose it’s a bit of a broader … Read more
When tieing two things together, e.g: Two distinct ideas, but with a common theme tieing them together Tieing shoe laces is easy. I have always spelt it with an ie. Now I am being told by Microsoft Word that my spelling is incorrect and should use a y. Google seems to largely agree with Word… … Read more
What is the actual spelling of “sic”/”sick” in a phrase like “I will sic my dog on you”? This is a tricky one to look up in an online dictionary, every match seems to be referring to an editor’s mark for a mistake. Answer It seems both spellings are used… sick2 (also sic) VERB [WITH … Read more
I am currently writing an email to office management. I am asking for office management to action a fix. I want to ask them in a polite manner. The sentence I have: “Please consider actioning a fix.” “actioning” is highlighted. I want to use professionally articulated grammar and spelling. a) How would I ask them … Read more
Searching the Google scholar, “spatio-temporal” returnn 778,000 hits, “spatial-temporal” returns 798,000 hits, “spatial-temporal scales” returns 3,620 hits, “spatio-temporal scales” returns 13,200 hits. Interestingly, one journal named “spatial and spatio-temporal epidemiology“ The office word spell checking (US-EN) prefer “spatial-temporal”, so I think “spatial-” is used in American English and “spatio-” is used in non-American English. Answer … Read more
In his most recent monologue on The Late Show, the comedian host Stephen Colbert, gently mocked a New York Times reporter’s style of writing (watch the excerpt on YouTube) “500 words” she whispered, her silken robe sliding to the floor as the morning sun hit her bedude form. I think that’s how the word “bedude” … Read more
Some words like: magnificent /mæɡˈnɪfəsənt/, anesthesia /ˌæn.əs.ˈθi.ʒə/, acrobat /ˈæk.ɹo.bæt/ accidentally /ˌæksəˈdɛnt(ə)li/, aluminium /ˌæl(j)uˈmɪn.j.əm/, satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/ have an /æ/ vowel in an unstressed position. The unstressed æ can come before or after the primary stress, is spelled with an “a”, does not need to be directly before or after the stressed syllable (as in satisfaction). Is … Read more
Software Developers use the dash interchangeably for these terms. Front-end meaning one works on the “Front End” of an application (e.g. HTML), Back-end meaning one works on the “Back End” of an application (e.g. PHP), and Full-stack meaning all of the above. Is there a proper spelling of these terms? Or does it matter? Answer … Read more
I’m wondering about the orthography of the old english edh ð. It is always drawn (lowercase) as a curved d with the line through it. But I’m wondering if it would be acceptable to just have it be a regular d with a line through it as in đ, or otherwise what other forms it … Read more
