Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009

Which "club" is this?
"Strike" or "combine"?
------
[Party at the sanatorium.]

Not long ago I heard someone say "Don't get on my case."  To me
this is not an expression I hear every day, but it is familiar
enough.  It means, more or less, "I've heard enough about that;
don't keep on nagging or berating me."

The Zeroes?

I just heard an NPR reporter say that Israel had "bisected Gaza in
two," which struck me as absurdly redundant. I went looking for other
examples using Google and found plenty, but some of them don't bother
me as much where the "two" is followed by a noun. For instance from a

I am reading the novel "Life of Pi".
The English of the book is very nice and taughtful.
What do you think about this book, if you read it?
I thought it is a good way of advancing my English....

Brothel creepers, or opera slippers?

Please consider the following two pieces:
The retirement plans of the employees
The employees' retirement plans
Is there necesserily a difference between the two? Should I prefer one over

I have a question about the following sentences.   I'd like to know
where to put the commas in these following sentences.   If the
sentences don't require commas in your opinion, let me know.  Thanks
===========================

Dear People (especially those in the US),
I am a PhD student in economics and I am going to hold a web questionnaire
that will take place in the US.
The numebr of respondents will be about 1500.

I recently found the words "cleansing gel"
on some kind of cosmetics which I thought
to be a spelling error.
Is it?

I saw an advertisement for glass, priced at so much a 'running metre'
and wondered how this differed from a square metre. I'm surprised to
see no definition for this on the internet and not even a reference to
it in a google search of this group.

"Stay-out-of-prison-baby" - the term "stay-out-of-prison baby" is used
to refer to babies that are conceived and born to a defendant (the
father or mother) during the time that the defendant is facing
criminal charges and the possibility of prison. It is based on the

Hello!  I am in trouble understanding the meaning of the verb
"remember" in the following passage.  I wonder if they have different
meanings: ***remember*** means "to bring some information into one's
mind"   and ___remember____  means "to recollect information from

From Jeffrey Archer's new book, PRISONER OF BIRTH (a wonderful thriller, by
the way):
The setting: the protagonist, Danny, was eating 2 boiled eggs for breakfast
and was interrupted repeatedly by the phone.

Is this "felt of"
coming
from a phrasal verb?
I'm reading it as "touched."