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1500 questions
49
votes
6 answers
"Todo list" or "to-do list"
I always thought it was a todo list, and quite a few places online refer to it as todo, but various spell checkers are telling me it should be to-do.
The only meaning I could find was a reference by dictionary.com which is different from the use I…
Toby
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49
votes
1 answer
How obsolete is the word "overmorrow"?
I stumbled over the word overmorrow and wanted to know whether it is in use.
So I used Googles Ngram Viewer and wondered why it has not found a single reference.
Was overmorrow only used one time in the bible?
stacker
- 3,793
49
votes
3 answers
Why is there confusion between depreciated and deprecated?
For at least a year and half, I read "deprecated" as "depreciated", even when writing it down myself, I would spell it as "depreciated", even though pretty much every time I read it, it was spelt correctly (the intended meaning, was the meaning of…
Jonathan.
- 788
49
votes
27 answers
Is there a word/ phrase to describe somebody who has devoted their life to practising something but is still not very good at it?
I need a word/phrase/idiom (either adjective or noun) to describe somebody who has devoted their life to practising something but is still not very good at it.
Example:
Look at Uncle, practised music all his life and still not very good at it: he…
English Student
- 7,372
49
votes
10 answers
Should I say "ATM" or "cashpoint" in the UK?
ATM is an initialism of automated teller machine, coined sometime in the 1970s. I have always considered it an Americanism while its British equivalent has always been cashpoint, Oxford Living Dictionaries tell me it is a trademark (who knew?).…
Mari-Lou A
- 91,183
49
votes
10 answers
What do we call a person in a war who holds the army's flag?
I am translating a history context talking about the Cold War and I am stuck with a word for the person in a war who holds the army's flag. This flag is used to show the mates that the army is still fighting. Usually when the flag is down, it could…
Reza Saberi
- 871
49
votes
13 answers
What is the most common English term for a person who attempts a coup d'état?
In Latin America, we have the Portuguese/Spanish word golpista (from the word golpe = coup d'état). In the British media, I've read coup monger and also putschist (from German word putsch = coup d'état).
But are these expressions as common in…
49
votes
3 answers
How "macro" in computer programming came about
The prefix macro- is normally used for large things like macroeconomics and macroscopic. How did it come to be used to describe text macros in the programming world?
e.James
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49
votes
6 answers
What's the difference between 'allow' and 'allow for'?
To be precise, I know that allow means to permit, and allow for is more like to make something possible, to enable, to make a provision for, but I'm still in doubt when I have to decide whether to use the preposition for or not.
For example, in the…
Nenad Dobrilovic
- 601
49
votes
1 answer
Is the plural of 'prefix' really 'prefixes' rather than 'prefices'?
It looks like the plural of 'prefix' is 'prefixes' - while I would expect it to be
'prefix' => 'prefices' like
'matrix' => 'matrices' or
'index' => 'indices'.
Is 'prefix' an exception to the rule? If so, why?
einpoklum
- 3,464
49
votes
7 answers
Why the phrase "thunder and lightning", and not "lightning and thunder"?
So there was just a thunderstorm, and my sister came with a question I couldn't answer:
Why is it "thunder and lightning", because the lightning comes before the thunder? Shouldn't it be "lightning and thunder"?
And now I wonder, where did the…
Klyzx
- 808
49
votes
17 answers
Suggested alternatives for "nice-to-have" as a noun
In the example below, I’m looking for a suitable synonym for nice-to-have. I’m specifically looking for an appropriate noun replacement; do we actually have such a thing in English?
Maintenance shouldn’t be a ‘nice-to-have’ but an all-important…
Tristan
- 563
49
votes
29 answers
Is there an English equivalent to the Persian saying "Now that it's my turn, the sky fell down"?
Suppose there are many people standing in a line to receive an expensive item as a free gift, and everyone receives it except for the last person in the line. The last one is told, "Sorry, the gifts are finished!". This person complains of his bad…
Soudabeh
- 9,217
49
votes
6 answers
What is the name of the symbols "<" and ">"?
I know that ^ is called a caret, but this doesn't seem to apply to the similarly shaped but nonetheless different < and > symbols. The only names I've heard them called is the less-than sign and the greater-than sign, but those names seem rather…
Nicole
- 11,828
49
votes
5 answers
Are there rules to determine whether a musician's title will end with “-er” or “-ist”?
There are drummers, buglers, fifers, whistlers, and fiddlers. Folks who play all the other instruments use the -ist suffix — pianist, violinist, cellist, tympanist, guitarist, flautist, etc., etc., ad nauseam. What determines which suffix should be…
Jim Farwell
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