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Many non-binary people now request that new third person pronouns (neopronouns) be used to refer to them, for example xe or ze. These have not been widely used by English speakers yet, but it's sti...
The final forms of ך, ן, ף, and ץ are the original forms. From a Quora answer to What's the origin of the final (sofit) forms for some of the Hebrew alphabet? Four of the five “sofit” letters ...
What is the purpose of "se" in the following text from Micah 6:8 (Nueva Versión Internacional)? ¡Ya se te ha declarado lo que es bueno! Ya se te ha dicho lo que de ti espera el Señor It doesn't s...
Recently I read in Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish that the phrase "estar de buenas" is a common way to say something like "to be in a good mood." I've found a bit of evidence of this online in...
It is not accurate to say that the Greek alphabet developed from the Hebrew alphabet as we know it. Instead, the two have a common predecessor in the Phoenician alphabet. In this sense you could ...
The verb "do" is generally used for asking a question. Eliminating the extra words, the statement "It makes sense" turns into the question "Does it make sense?" "Is it make sense?" is grammatically...
Do Support Let's see exactly where the sentence comes from. There are two processes going on here, "do support" and "inversion". The full, standard non-question sentence is, of course, "Using the...
A guild is normally a craft or trade organization. "Lodge" has many meanings, but the relevant one is a local branch or meeting place of a fraternal organization. The situation with Freemasonry ma...
There has been a tendency in English toward using singular "they" in the non-specific case, like "someone knocked on my door and they left a package". This is more common in speech than in writing...
Replying to the last edit (#4)... Since it language related site hence I am asking the question by creating new Q rather than commenting there. The earlier title was Is using plural form for sin...
Is it true to say that Lao script is a simplified version of the Thai script? A criteria might be: Fewer letters Fewer diacritics Fewer tone markers More reforms over the years (possibly due...
Reactions are officially here! Reactions are another way for the community to give feedback on a post; for more information, see this Meta post. I've disabled the default "Works for me", "Outdate...
It's not 'Australian', just English. Breaking it down: 'bill': A bill in a governmental context is a piece of proposed legislation. To become law (actual legislation), the elected members of a ...
Let's disregard vestments (clothing) for a moment and consider hats. In many cultures, specific hats are associated with different social roles. Sometimes these are strictly regulated by sumptuary ...
I know some people pronounce caution with an /ʃ/ and others with a /ʒ/, and the same is true of cautious. I wonder if anyone can provide information on who says each (by region, time, etc.).
Stick to the "waypoint". You could also encounter "punt d’inflexió" meaning a "turning point". However, the meaning isn't identical. An inflection point is a point where the direction of travel ...
I'm wondering about the origin of the Swedish word ohyra (vermin). Someone humorously suggested that this would be because vermin are unwanted guests not paying rent (hyra), though they had no sour...
TL;DR: Similar usage is much older than paper checks. But the rumor is not far from the truth, especially if the question is about the U.S. dollar currency specifically. The usage inside of (mode...
Well, some languages do, some don't. Some specific greetings do, some don't. A bit of sampling of the omniglot collection of greetings, with the help of the indispensable wiktionary for the trans...
We are talking about the 17th most common word in current English - it is a very successful member of the language, and also a constituent of many idioms, and most of those idioms have a single mea...
Whether "gasket" comes from French "garcette" or not, I have no idea. If a particularly misogynistic and at the same time naval etymology is sought, then the thing called "garcette" was, among oth...
Polite language got turned into legal language maybe? The first example that comes up when I google the word "payable" is "interest is payable on the money owing." And from Dictionary.com I get "...
Vietnamese and Thai are normally classified into separate primary language families, meaning that the languages as a whole are unrelated. Whenever you find a similar word with a similar meaning, t...
In an examination in my country (India) I had a multiple choice question on the order of pronouns. Q: Please try to remember when I, you and my wife were talking there. Options: A. you, I and ...
The Tironian et was a scribal abbreviation for the Latin word et; it was used for centuries across Europe, but finally died out and was replaced with & in almost all languages. The exception wa...
