Should I say “I am unaware of neither of A and B” or “I am unaware of both of A and B”? In other words, is unaware negation? Answer I wouldn’t use either of those sentences. I feel like I could say any of the following: "I am unaware of both A and B", "I … Read more
What is the negative form of the word “extreme” for this context: Temperature/climate insignificantly influences the production of honey due to the ______(non-extreme)______ temperature during monsoon season. Answer A common antonym of extreme, in contexts ranging from weather to politics, is moderate: ODO: Average in amount, intensity, quality, or degree. ‘we walked at a moderate pace’ (of a person, party, … Read more
This cartoon was recently posted on Facebook. My sister (who is a retired HS English teacher) says the grammar is wrong and that the correct wording should be: “Neither one of us is.” but I disagree. I am not an English teacher but I believe that “US” relates to “WE” and the correct wording for … Read more
I cannot get the real meaning of this AAVE sentence from rapper Kon Artis, a song lyric transcribed at Genius: But no Source never made me not buy an album when they say it was wack Source is the name of a magazine. Answer It’s confusing because there are so many negatives that don’t belong … Read more
Here is my current understanding of these English phrases: very bad (=not good at all, =not very good); bad (=not good at all, =not very good, =not very bad); not good, not bad (=not good at all, =not very good, =not bad at all, =not very bad); good (=not very good, =not bad at all, … Read more
I have this sentence: This is all I can say. I have to turn it into a negative statement. I have tried a few things and ended up with: I can’t say more than this. Am I right in rewording it like this? Are there other possibilities? Answer This is all I can say "I … Read more
Using the british-english tag because I’m wondering if it is commonly said this way or accepted as correct in the UK Is it grammatically correct to say, for example, “She’s not been happy” instead of “She hasn’t been happy”? Aren’t they both ways of saying “She has not been happy”? I asked my mother and … Read more
In English, “immune”, meaning “invulnerable”, seems to be the antithesis of a hypothetical word “mune”, which would logically mean “vulnerable”. Is there, or has there ever been a word “mune”, to which “immune” would be the antithesis? Answer Almost. The issue here is that the medical sense is based on a transfer from finance/taxation: immune: … Read more
In the programming world, I’ve often seen and used the phrase: Create new table if not already exists. Is this valid English wording and/or grammar? Answer The clause if not already exists is programming jargon found primarily in inline documentation or reference to it. In the interests of economy, it violates the syntax of standard … Read more
What is correct in English, non-existing or nonexisting? Searching sources on Google doesn’t help much as both variants are widely present there. Onelook Dictionary Search doesn’t show much about either option: nonexisting is in Wordnik, which references a Wiktionary entry that defines the word as “nonexistent”, and non-existing is also in Wordnik, but with no … Read more
