Discussion Groups / English Usage / December 2006

a sentence from the Novel DragonLance:
Theman's walk was marked by an easy grace-an elvish grace, Flint would
have said,yet
the man's body had the thickness and tight muscles of a human, while

Suppose I see my friend and I immediately want to ask him a question:
Where on earth ... you ... those shoes? They're awful!
                        (buy)
Which tense should I use in above question, considering British English as

Jackson said Hollywood has a history of racial inequality and singled
out "Seinfeld" for not reflecting reality. He noted that other than
the occasional appearance of a black lawyer, the show was "lily
white."

The preposition "to" is pronounced (RP) (strong) [tu:], (weak) [tU],
[tu], [t@] (http://dictionary.cambridge.org). I know [t@] is the usual
pronunciation before a consonant ("to do", "to feel"), but where do all
the remaining pronunciations come into play? For instance, are [tU] and

Is this
"Did I not"
equivalent to
"Yes, I know it (the place), and how!"

hi i was wondering if anyone can help me understand the diffrence
between hypocrite and hypocrisy? our english teacher explained it to us
but i cant seem to understand when to use hypocrite or hypocrisy.
thanks

On 2006-12-10, Matthew L. Martin <nothere@notnow.never> wrote:

In a book set in the Galloway region of Scotland, the
author, Dorothy L Sayers,  has many of the characters
speaking a Scottish dialect.  The meanings of most of the
words are immediately clear, while some take me a few

On the SF series "Heroes", much has been made of the prophecy "save the
cheerleader, save the world"...most viewers, as well as the characters on the
show, have assumed that this is a cause-and-effect pairing, that saving the
cheerleader is what will save the world....

This one's for Skitt:
<http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003870.html#more>.
The title is "Enoush Latvian to get by?"  (The question mark is in the
title, as indicated by the punctuation.)

Should we say "I have no friends" or "I have no friend"

'Truthiness' is the word of the year
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/09/word.year.ap/index.html
Started out as a joke but ended up in MW-something or other.

The following comments with regard to the piece "Comma Gets
a Cure" appear in a footnote at
http://www.uta.fi/FAST/AK11/comma.html
======= Begin quoted comments =======

I'm stood here with my cock and hairy balls caked in smelly human man
sh.t and not one of you gives a f.ck!
Jesus f.cking christ it stinks BAD.
I couldn't eat my burrito earlier because of the stench.

I thought of a story that would take place on a farm in Oklahoma in the
1930s, so I need
to learn words used by country folk. Besides this book AW, Shucks! The
Dictionary of