Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009

Rebecca Elliot, Ph.D.'s "Painless Grammar" gives a usage for three
ellipses not found in other texts I've consulted:
1. Use an ellipsis to indicate a long slow break:
There it was again ... that soft but eerie sound.

No, I don't like you, Bob. And we need to talk about that. Let's start here:
You should talk about flexibility, Bob. You made about 25 edits on my
except none of which you're apparently interested in defending. I've set
up a thread for you to do that, but you've yet to respond.

I'm currently teaching English as a foreign language in Asia. We were
watching a video the other day in class and it had the following
grammatical explanations:
(singular) There's a monkey in the tree.

What do I have to do to get you to defend the edits you made, Bob?
Put some cheese on a crossword puzzle to draw your rat fink a.s out of
your hole?
EG

I saw another thread about Dickensian but didn't seem to answer my q'
so here goes.
In this article about George Will's column
http://www.theseminal.com/2009/01/11/why-is-george-will-trying-to-scare-the-hell
-out-of-us/

I checked the dictionary, and found no difference between these two.
Or with the different preposition, the idiom means the same thing. I
wonder if my assumption is correct. Or you use different preposition
with "be credited" in different situation. Thanks for you help. With

From Lincoln's Second Inaugural, one of the most praised speeches in
history (IIUC), first paragraph.
"The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as
well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably

Yesterday, my wife asked me to take some cardboard boxes to the rubbish dump
for her. I am not sure where she got them from, but she had used them to
store Christmas presents, and had no further use for them.
One of the boxes had been originally used by a wholesaler of household ...

Is it proper to use "nor" when describing a series of negative
choices.  For instance, is it proper to say, "There were no problems
in room A, B, nor C."  If I use "or" instead of "nor" would that be
improper?

The author probably meant something like "in contrast" but an intriguing
picture was evoked by a book review in today's  Washington Post Book
World section by Stephen Amidon. Discussing "The Rules of the Game" by
Leonard Downie, it is said that a polital superstar donned a fitted ...

We watched a mindless Australian programme earlier this evening
called "Auction Squad", where they "improve" houses to get a better
sale price on auction day.  This one included placing a couple of
Adirondack chairs in the garden.

Hi! is it correct to say "they went to dive to the seaside", or should
it be "they went to dive to the sea" or are both fine?
Thanks!
-Anssi

Why i don't see the messages here (in my newsgroup reader for
alt.usage.english) that appear on the following web page?
http://www.englishforums.com/English/AltUsageEnglish/Forum7075.htm

Hello!  Would you please help me understand the following passage?  I
cannot figure out the structure of the expression ***rely on
institutions to protect their civil and economic rights to do so***
The US offers the people various opportunities and institutions.  They

Which among the following is grammatically correct?
A) DIY wedding invitations can sport variations in color, theme, and
design.
B) DIY wedding invitations can sport variations in colors, themes, and