Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

I am moved to introduce this thread by a couple of responses to my
postings on sci.lang and on alt.english.usage.  Be warned that this
posting largely presents nothing but my opinions about British
dictionaries of English.

What does 'Not by a long shot' mean and how it came about?

I have problems with the following sentences:
Is it "life or lives" and "a hell" or just "hell" in the following sentence:
Bullies should get zero tolerance because they change the life of the
bullied pupils into a hell.

--------
She began, Leonora did--and perhaps it was that that gave me the idea
of a touch of insolence in her character, for she never afterwards did
any one single thing like it--she began by saying in quite a loud

What's the meaning of the phrase "Gone to seed"? Is it local or
universal English?

   Is there any concise name for words that are nouns
or adjectives when the accent is on the first syllable
and verbs when on a later syllable (usually the second,
but not always?  There are about 100 such words in English.

Maybe it doesn't matter, but which one is more correct than the other?

Which one should I write in English?
2003 has been a great year for us.
or
Year 2003 has been a great year for us

In "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll, in the second chapter
("The Garden of Live Flowers"), I stumbled over an utterance of
Alice's:
"Oh, its's too bad!" she cried. "I never saw such a house for getting

1. "Drivers needed. TLC or HACK lic req'd."
   - what do TLC and HACK mean ?
2. "Drivers owners/ops. Commercial plates a must!"
   - what does ops means?

Do any of you good people know where the phrase "Pull the other one" originates.
There's a version in, I think, a Monty Python sketch/film that goes:
"Pull the other one. It's got bells on it" (or something to that
effect). I'm pretty sure it was a MP film. I can distinctly see/hear

The dictionary defines 'bodega' as 'a small grocery store, sometimes combined
with a wineshop, in certain Hispanic communities'. I've never seen one - I
imagine a Mom and Pop grocery on the corner which also sells beer and
cigarettes. Is it really a wineshop? Does it often have a ...

Wrt the CAPITALIZED items:
-------
By God, she looked at me as if I were an invalid--as any kind woman
may look at a poor chap in a bath chair. And, yes, from that day

New York is among the North American cities currently experiencing some
rather severe winter cold.  Today its Metro-North Railroad has had to
cancel a number of commuter trains.  (These are electric trains, and a
friend tells me that it's the classic "wrong kind of snow" problem:

 Churchill bought Charlie - giving him a boy's name despite the fact
 she was female - in 1937.                        -- The Daily Mirror