Laila remembered another fight, and, that time, Mammy had stood over Babi and said in a mincing way,That’s your business, isn’t it, cousin? To make nothing your business. Even your own sons going to war. Howl pleaded with you. Bui you buried your nose in those cursed books and let our sons go like they … Read more
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a dogfight means: 1 : a fight between dogs broadly : a fiercely disputed contest 2 : a fight between two or more fighter planes usually at close quarters But dog fighting is not defined in the same dictionary but in a wiki as: a type of blood sport generally … Read more
If a couple is a pair or a group of two, what does one call a group of three, four, etc.? Answer You’re looking for: 3: trio 4: quartet 5: quintet 6: sextet 7: septet 8: octet .. and so on. Beyond eight the numbers get a bit silly. If you’re talking about music groups, … Read more
In Chinese and Vietnamese sometimes a word is made up by listing its examples. For example, “table-chair” means furniture, “month-year” means time, “land-water” means country, “spring-summer-fall-winter” means the cycle of time, “birth-old-sickness-death” means the cycle of life. Of course words for “furniture” or “time” exist, but by using “table-chair” or “month-year”, the alluded concepts are … Read more
OED says that: Middle English buryel, biriel, incorrectly formed as a singular of byriels, buriels n., q.v.; in later times associated with nouns in -al from French, such as espousal-s. Etymonline.com says that: “act of burying,” late 13c.; earlier “tomb” (c. 1200), false singular from Old English byrgels “tomb,” from byrgan “to bury” + suffix … Read more
I am responding to an email where i want inform the person who asked some question saying we will discuss about this during Mondays meeting. I am not sure which is the correct way of framing this sentence. 1) Thanks for providing the details. We will discuss about this in our Monday meeting. Thank you … Read more
I am looking for one word to describe an ability that does more harm than good to the one having the ability. For example, an artist who has so much to express that it drives him mad. Or a scientist who is so brilliant and ahead of his time that he is never appreciated. Or … Read more
Why not to use one suffix for both stems? Like ‘nervAL’/’mentAL’ or ‘nervOUS’/’mentOUS’. Thanks for your answer Answer It is impossible to trace the logic behind the adoption of usage. The best we can do is look at the etymology per the OED. There are actually two words in English spelled nerval. The first (now … Read more
I want to emphasize that I only have 5 dollars, so can I use the sentence: Five dollars is all I have. Or must it be: Five dollars are all I have. Please give the explanation as well. Answer It all depends on the context. If we refer to five dollars as a single entity, … Read more
In mathematics, one uses the prefix co- to denote something that’s dual to an already known object, for instance: limit -> colimit, basis -> cobasis, cycle -> cocycle, tangent -> cotagent, domain -> codomain. On the other hand, words that arose by adding co- usually have a doubled ‘r’, for instance: responds -> correspond, relate … Read more
