Discussion Groups / English Usage / December 2003

<http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/121303dnmetdealey.953ff8c8.htm
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Man found shot where JFK slain
Apparent suicide the first on the 'X' on Elm Street at Dealey Plaza

I am currently translating a Canadian vehicle's permit. There are a few
problems I have come accross, namely, at the very top of the Permit
Vehicle Portion it says "PAS" - "FIT"  and then there comes the plate
number. In the Permit Plate Portion it says "PAS" and then comes the ...

This morning's paper had an article about purported treatments for the
common cold.  The following appeared in a sidebar:
"Echinacea: Can shorten colds or reduce symptoms, but there's little
evidence it prevents or alleviates colds."

My colleagues and I are writing a technical report. I wrote the
following:
The experimental curves for A, B and C all fitted to a single
exponential with a rate constant of 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, respectively.

I've run across the phrase "must needs" occasionally in my reading and
really haven't seen a definition of it.  The most recent was the
following that I picked out of an online Catholic dictionary:
"Every prophecy which had not been literally accomplished in the first

I wonder whether the word combination "counting crows"
is part of a proverb or some sort of English idiom.
What is it used for (besides the fact that it is the
name of a rock group)?

I am looking for the best grammar checker software in the market.  Any
suggestion?  Is Sylewriter software any good?
http://www.stylewriter-usa.com/

Sent to me by a friend...
===begin quote===
A certain private school recently was faced with a unique problem.
A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would

By chance, a single MS has yielded a nicely contrasted pair of split
infinitives -- one sensible, one perverse:
 organisms are not allowed to directly write to or read from each
 other's genomes

Would anyone help me out with catching the exact meaning of the very
beginning (until the words “this letter”) of the following Non-Compete
agreement below? The agreement has been sent to a CONTRACTOR COMPANY by
SomeCompany, Inc. I am also confused with the use of (s)he (the ...

I would be grateful if somebody explain me the difference between "a
toolset" and "a set of tools", if any at all.
The context is a feature list of some user interface library:
...

Does anybody know whether the hyphen before "like" is needed in phrases like
"Windows NT-like window manager", "this gnat-like aircraft", etc.?
Regards,
Alexander Bodnarchuk

poetaster = poet + aster where aster is an obscure (to me) perjorative
suffix. What are some other perjorative suffixes?

Over the past year or so the OED has begun to include citations from
Usenet postings in draft entries for the next edition.  A search on the
online version finds about 175 Usenet cites thus far.  Sadly, only one
of these originates from AUE, in the entry for "sharking":

Can anyone confirm whether the phrase "a lamentation of swans" is the
correct collective description for a number of swans on land (or water).
If you think it is, do you have a reference that provides some sort of
authority?  Is it British English or perhaps American?  I can't seem ...