Discussion Groups / English Usage / October 2006

britches
Rose was acquainted with the agents who had prepared these dossiers. Two
were clown; she had thought that the other six were good men. Now they
were buried in the depths of Headquarters or testifying before a federal

He rose, his hand gesturing he would be there in a minute.
Is the sentence above correct if he is raising his hand? When I read it
I think he is standing up.  He is supposed to be raising his hand.
I wrote it as, He rose his hand gesturing he would be there in a

By "does" below I mean neither the plural nor the possessive of the
female deer, but the third person present perfect of "to do".
Today, in the subject line of a message on an Earthlink newsgroup, I
saw the word "does" spelled with an apostrophe. "Doe's".

I have just begun reading "The Story of the Royal Dragoons 1938-1945" by
Julian Pitt-Rivers, and came upon this sentence in his description of
action along the Egyptian frontier in 1941:
"'The wire', as it was called, was pierced with gaps from place to place

When did the word 'socialize' add the meaning "to pass around a document
amongst coworkers for review and comment" as in "I need to socialize
your proposal before I can authorize hiring your firm"?
I ran into that usage a few years ago and thought nothing of it.

I learned on today's local news on the radio that police are searching
a lake for a missing boy using a "submissible robot camera".
I also heard President Bush saying that North Korea has "defied the
wishes of the international community" by performing a nuclear test.

I have a list of words/expressions whose meaning I cannot clearly find.
I put the list here (in brackets, the meaning I think it could have) in
case you have some useful ideas:
That's the kind of thinking I can get behind (I share the idea?)

Hi, I was told about this website through another newsgroup. I am a
writer working on publication but, I still struggle with some grammar
issues. I need to now what rules I am breaking, so I can strengthen my
mechanics. Is this the right place, can anyone help me.

When, last late summer, Your Colonel bought US $100,000 of Low's stock,
I knew it would go up; but I couldn't have foreseen the meteoric rise
of the past three days.  Being a home-improvement maven, formerly in
energy issues, Your Colonel just can't stop making money.  Which is why

[Thread deliberately broken; see below]
mike weber wrote:

I have a sentence in question. Here is the the whole paragraph for
reference:
Some time ago, I received a call from a colleague who asked if I would
be the referee on the grading of an examination question. He was about

How to spell the bellow fragment right?
"because your mother failed to acquaint you precepts and ambly posts of book
of etiquette"

Anyone got any strong views on grammar...
specifically about when should one use italics/bold/CAPS
Personally I like to use bold &/or italics quite a lot
because it makes copy more skim-readable.

A person told me that both "heard" and "heared" are the correct forms
of hear.  Is that true?  I can only find "heard" in the dictionary.
David

Can someone please differentiate mentoring and advising
in the aspects of faculty-student, faculty-faculty and student-
student relationships? My understanding are
a professor may advise a student;