Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

RIP Magnus Magnusson.

Reading Lionel Shriver's (crazy name, crazy gal - have you seen her on
"Late Review" (BBC2, Friday, 2300) with her gloves on indoors) novel
"We Need to Talk about Kevin", I was struck by the following sentence:
"For some reason I imagine it will reassure you that I still get the

Hello, Everyone:
Most people know that the Latin term, alma mater, as used in English
means a college or university one graduated from. But it is debated at
the discussion page of Tsinghua University of Wikipedia

I was watching "Groundhog Day" the other day (again!) and I started
wondering how the phrase "two bits" in AmE came to mean 25 cents. Is it
connected in any way with the phrase "two-bit" (meaning cheap and
nasty) e.g. "he's just a two-bit hustler"

I redd in a Wodehouse book that there's a place called
"Nether Wallop" in England.  I couldn't believe it was true,
but now Google gives me "about 32,600" hits on "Nether
Wallop".  

Could you please suggest me a word that best fits the following text?
"We are familiar with the saying "a picture paints a thousand words"
and in the global village the world has become, information in
pictorial

Could you please help me with editing/rewrite if you think I should do
so for this email that I wil send it to the director of the program
asking her to consider my application to apply for that program. Thanks
a lot for the help.

I had the impression that the origin of this expression was related to
a horse bitten by a fly and shying two times as a result. In other
words, the horse becomes skittish and nervous for a while after being
bitten. Is that a false explanation of the origin of the term? If it's

I can't find the meaning of Chestertonian. Does anyone know what it
means? Infact no one has posted anyone about this word in this NG.
This is the sentense:
"Proprietress is the typical Chestertonian female, a being devoid of

Y A O H Ú S H U A
 FACTS SHOCKING BUT TRUE!
 1. The real, original and genuine Name of our Creator in the
 original Hebrew Holy Scriptures is 'YAO-HOO' and that of the

Try to say the alphabet without moving your lips or your tongue. Every
letter will sound exactly the same. - from
www.intellectual-playground.com

Extracts:
The sands of time make a definition of 'Europe' elusive. In contrast,
the term 'Asia' is easier explained.
That helps us. The compilers of Webster's dictionary say that Latin

I'm having trouble knowing how to punctuate
the following sentence, which came up in a
translation. If it were a quote, I don't think
there would be any problem putting in a

What is the difference between (if there is a distinction at all)
Please let her bring me the layouts
Please make her bring me the layouts
Please have her bring me the layouts?

I call the holes on computers, TV's, DVD players, printers and VCRs
that you plug cables, headphones, adapters, flashdrives etc. into ports
and bays. What else can I call them? It's good to know every word in
English for them.