Activity for msh210
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Question | — |
What's a "road colony"? Lawrence Sanders, Caper, 1980. 1987 paperback edition, page 61: > We saw crumbling walls, decayed ceilings, cracked plumbing fixtures, exposed electrical wiring. We saw one room that appeared to have decorative wallpaper until we realized it was an enormous road colony. We saw a once-elegant hotel... (more) |
— | 7 months ago |
| Question | — |
How did "listen to" TV become "watch"? It seems that people used to say "listen to" and "hear" television, a holdover from radio, and that that gave way to "watch" and "see" over time. Has anyone any information on the timeline of this change? Especially interesting would be such information for specific dialects (or registers). (more) |
— | 11 months ago |
| Question | — |
Why do Chinese people say "idear"? In my experience of speaking with immigrants from China to the United States, it seems many of them pronounce the word idea with a final ɹ (even before a consonant). Why? (more) |
— | about 1 year ago |
| Question | — |
'Caution' and 'cautious' with ʃ or ʒ? 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.). (more) |
— | about 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can a prepositional phrase shift to become a verb? I don't know the linguistics behind it, but perhaps can address one of your questions— > Can you please make this shift feel more intuitive — by noting that prepositional phrases sometimes become verbs in English, too, though rarely. You can find lots of examples on the Web of "per-dieming" at ... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Question | — |
Why word future events in the present? > If you're around tomorrow, stop by. > I'll eat when I'm hungry. > She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes. You're around tomorrow, I'm hungry, and she comes are describing future events but use present wording. In fact, the corresponding future wording is wrong or at best aw... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Question | — |
What is "these gentry" in Marxist writing? In George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language", he refers to "[t]he jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard, etc.)". Seemingly these gentry means something other than simply "the aforementioned g... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: When do you use 'whom'? This is the kind of question there's more than one correct answer to. Most trained linguists will tell you to do whatever is most natural or whatever everyone else does. They tend to be a descriptivist bunch, linguists, saying language is as language is used. And whom does seem to be dropping out ... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Article | — |
Online Etymology Resources Please post, below, valuable online resources for etymology. English - https://www.etymonline.com, the Online Etymology Dictionary, gathers info from several trusted sources including the Oxford English Dictionary Spanish - http://etimologias.dechile.net/, creación de Valentín Anders. Y si ... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Does English support three-word contractions? Arnold Zwicky and Geoff Pullum's paper "Cliticization vs. inflection: English n't", published in the September 1983 issue of Language) (volume 59, number 3), indicates that I'd've exists. While I'm not completely sure what sort of normativity you seek, I think this might satisfy you. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Question | — |
What determines the present-tense form of a kal verb? Most פָּעַל-construction verbs have the פּוֹעֵל form as the masculine singular present tense; for example, לָמַד→‎לוֹמֵד and צָבַע→‎צוֹבֵעַ. But some פָּעַל-construction verbs have the פָּעֵל form as the masculine singular present tense; for example, שָׁכַן→‎שָׁכֵן and קָרַב→‎קָרֵב... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Question | — |
Why no "to"-infinitive in pual and huf'al? One of the infinitives in Hebrew is translated "to [verb]" and starts with ל, l. For example, ללמוד, lilmod, "to learn", and להשאר, l'hishaer, "to remain"; it's used often. But two of the verb constructions (binyanim), namely pual and huf'al, do not have this form. Why not? (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Are conlang (artificially constructed natural languages) questions on topic? I think questions about linguistics as applied to a language one is constructing (or has come across) should be on-topic as linguistics questions. For example: "Here's a description of how noun cases work in my novel's language.… I'd like some of the cases to disappear over time, replaced in use by o... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Question | — |
Whence אֶת between partners' names? The word אֶת /et/ is used with the following meanings: In Biblical Hebrew, it means "with". In modern Hebrew it survives, but only with a complement-of-the-preposition pronoun suffix: "with me", "with you", etc. In Biblical and modern Hebrew (and points in between), it's the direct-object prep... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |