Discussion Groups / English Usage / August 2007

I just sent an email to the a government regulatory agency telling on
someone--he will get in big trouble.
The phrase came to mind, "I dropped a dime on him."
I wonder what phrase would have developed if email predated payphones?

Could you please help me with the meaning of the expression "in the
sequel"?
Thanks in advance,
Paul

What's the similarity & difference between "Mexican" & "Hispanic"???

My local Braums' (it's a famous Oklahoma dairy farm with many food
outlets) has a menu item labeled "Sixth lb hamburger...".
At first I thought that should be "Six-pound...", hyphen and all, but
then I realized that would mean a rather large hamburger.

I think the following sentence may have some errors, and how to reconstruct it
more idiomatic.
"Then, the biologic energy is transmitted to all organs by the end of veins and
arteries to provide energy to cells so as to activate the cells lack of

Dear Friends,
Are you CLUELESS of your NEW DOCTOR??
If he is good then why not let everyone know? If he is bad, then why
not warn others?

Is there anything wrong with the following sentence?  In particular, I
would like to know if the sentence "most economists found
disagreeable" can be inserted like this without causing any
grammatical error.

Yes, I got home last night and my wife asked me what I had under my shoe.
Apparently I had stood on a Post-It.
I cannot but help wondering if that would be called a "foot-note"?

Wiktionary () allows two prononcuations of the word "tuple", one with
"ju", the other with short "a". Where is the difference?
Thanks in advance
Sasha

I would like to know under which conditions, if any, the usage of the
phrase "He better is" is acceptable. For example:
"He better is confined to the army."
OR

Let me ask a question about the meaning of phrase from a novel.
Once they drew near and passed us their speed was vivid, a matter of
muscles stretching and hooves
thudding urgently on the quiet surface.  (Longshot, p52, by Dick

It seems many people use "per se" rather loosely, as if it were a
synonym for "precisely."
This is discussed in the Urban Dictionary, where several popular
abuses of the phrase are described:

Russian television networks sure are snappy dressers!  To wit:
"The prince [Albert II of Monaco] and the president [Vladimir Putin]
spent several days on vacation in the mountainous southern Siberian
region of Tuva.  Dressed in fatigues, fingerless gloves, a bush hat and

Consider the compound sentence
"My subject is Mathematics and I'm not sure whether it is a science."
I like to make it a complex sentence, but I can't find a correct
complex form!

I have a question in English grammar. Some years ago, Apple Computer's
slogan was "Think Different". Is this correct English? Shouldn't it
really be "Think Differently"? Is there a difference between the two
sentences? Like thinking of something different vs. thinking in a