Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009

As everyone knows,
  1 yard = 3 feet
  1 rod[A] = 5.5 yards = 16.5 feet
  1 chain[B,C] = 4 rods = 22 yards = 66 feet

Consider the following syntactic structures:
Give sb. sth.
In the above structure, if I want to use a clause in the place of
sth., I will have the following two choices:

"The original organism is commonly supposed to have been a simple but
effective self-replicating structure, whose descendants’ methods of
self-replication grew increasingly elaborate".
I'm not sure I like this sentence. It hurts my mental tongue. I'm on

Our dictionaries tell us Danes that the word "blighter" is a
synonym for beggar. How do you - as native speakers - consider
this?
Arne H. Wilstrup

Barack Obama has not been a president for a long time before
texting jokes came to my Danish mobile saying in Danish - but
here translated into English - that The White House must
change its name to The Black Barack.

I have a question about the meaning of this sentence:
"I spent one hundred dollars to buy this skirt."
One (possible) scenario could be, say, a friend came to visit me. She
showed me a new skirt she just bought, and said "I spent one hundred

Pardon my brain fade, but I can’t seem to find a word to finish my
sentence. See the following passage:
Lyell opposed the idea of the jump from non-rational animals to
rational humans, as being too much of a jump for his uniformitarianism

Okay, I've used a lot of the suggestions offered here, and now my first
three chapters are ready to be sent as sample chapters to the publisher.
Any errors found would be appreciated.
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This has prompted a whole subthread of tree-related puns.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
_The times they are a-changing._
It is the title of one of Bob Dylan's albums.
What does "a-changing" mean?

Okay, I've used a lot of the suggestions offered here, and now my first
three chapters are ready to be sent as sample chapters to the publisher.
Any errors not would be appreciated.
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I intend to write this sentence: "In addition, we develop a
mathematical model to approximate the optimal transformation by a more
computational efficient transformation". However, since in the other
sentences of the paragraph, I use a lot of "transformation ", I am

I am very confused about the difference between desired and desirable.
When I should use the former and when the later? Are they
interchangable?
Can you please clarify my confusion?

I hear many say, "Our better angels".
I'm not sure that's erroneous, but "the better angels of our nature"
makes more sense to me.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
Considering this situation
ftp://ftp.caltech.edu/pub/gradofc/recommendation.pdf
Estimated rank of applicant in the department of X is [number] out of