Discussion Groups / English Usage / February 2008

http://dadge.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/the-lolita-bed/
Type Lolita Woolworths into Google Images http://images.google.co.uk/ for
additional proof.
Adrian

I haven't heard this story before, so I wasn't quite able to determine if
"whose failure to take a certain position"
meant
"whose failure to take a certain position AGAINST drinking?"

For better or for worse, knowing English makes life easier and better.
For instance, the ability to speak English allows individuals to
communicate with millions of other people from around the world. Some
globalization critics and ethnic nationalists, especially in smaller

1) What does it mean by extenuated circumstances?
2) Why in songs, "don't" is always used for "she" & "he" instead of
"doesn't".
Thanks

Translating a letter of 1867
Chap attending St John's college Cambridge.
he seems worried about his exams,
the results will be read out in the Senate House on Friday,

"Wentlooge" ... is it pronounced pretty much as an RP-er
would expect, that is, with a soft "g" and no schwa at the end?
Philip Eden

With the (American) writer's strike, I'm watching TV shows that I
would never otherwise watch.  Tonight it was "The Last Restaurant
Standing" on BBC America.  An evidently famous restaurateur, Raymond
Blanc, invites seven couples to start a restaurant and will eliminate

Here's a problem I'm sure the assembled talents of aue can solve.
"Buff and blue" was the party uniform of the Whigs in the UK in the
1780s, as can be seen in many contemporary carttons, particularly of
the Westminster election of 1784. It is often said, and was certainly

too many niggers playing in it and taking all our white woman, it is
time for the white man to take our country back before it is too late

I wonder what's the reason for the presence of "there" in "there
shambled" here?
-----
About ten minutes after we last saw Ernest, a scared, insulted girl,

Let's see what do y'all think of this guess of mine:
Until, the mid-twentieth century, or whenever the terms "nerd" and
"geek" became popular, there were no English words for this sort of
broad personality trait.  The closest I can think of are "bookworm"

Is "out" really necessary in "was out upon the other side?"
If so, it may be only because of "out of the water," I guess.
----
He had crossed his Rubicon—not perhaps very heroically or dramatically,

The words "Kung Xi Fat Choi" liternally mean 'Congraduation... Get
rich!'. These are the words that the Chinese people greet each other
with on the first day of the Chinese New Year.
Prior to the economic reforms in China that started about 30 years

Can conditions be "exploited?"
I thought it refers only to people and/or resources.
------
[Conchis remembers his years in Argentine.]

My current light reading is "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks
(her "March" was better, IMO) and have come across an unusual - to me -
use of the word "dark":
"I imagined Mum would be pretty dark if she had to stick around Boston.."