Discussion Groups / English Usage / March 2009

I heard someone (a government-related person, methinks) on television today,
and he said: "...as we rise the cost of...". (It wasn't Brit; it was an
American.)
Has "raise" become outdated?

I would use the term "reflection pool" without further reflection or
pondering. But others seem to use or even prefer "reflection pond",
"reflecting pool", "reflecting pond", or even "mirror pond". Are these
variations just random?

In case I find a mistake after I post this, the latest version may be found here:
<http://www.rawbw.com/~rem/NewPub/obama-2009Feb28.txt>
or <http://tinyurl.com/maas09> and click on the obvious link dated 2009.Feb.28.
This appeared on PBS's "News Hour with Jim Lehrer"

I just can't keep this statement in this book and have to change it.
What would you suggest as a minimal change that this copyeditor can
sneak in? I'd really prefer to remove the "off on." Could we just
state, "at least signed off if not directed by him"? Here is what the

We've recently discussed here how to address a university professor when
writing to her or him.
This came to mind while I was watched a BBC TV programme the other day:
_Once a Soldier_.

I know I have ask so many questions that are not related to this
group. I hope the regular members of this group will tolerate this one
as well. I am at my wits end, and I don't have an energy to search a
proper NG to post it. So please forgive me for flooding this newsgroup

"Charles of the big one" is the new name given to Charlemagne by
machine translations from the German. Another interesting title
is "Bavarian cure prince".
You can find these in tourist information for the town of

What's the meaing of the following sentence:
You beat me to it!

The sentence below is about "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."
"The film shifts the time period 60 years later, renames the love
interest Daisy (a "Gatsby" homage) and changes the ending."
I'm not clear about the meaning of "homage" in the sentence. Please

As the subject line says, adios for a few days.
I've bought a new PC (Desktop) and will be doing what I can to save
things (off the present one) on disks. I don't know how else to put old
stuff on the new PC.

English is a second language to me. As a result my written English is
almost incomprehensible, a veritable abomination, something to make
grammarians grate their teeth in despair; also, I tend to pay little
or no thought to issues relating to British versus American English

As a general rule, the phrase "being behind the 8-ball" tends to mean
something similar to the phrase "being in a tight spot" or "between a
rock and a hard place". One can see how this might have come from the
pool table. If you must strike a target ball with the cue ball without

The charts for ASCII-IPA that I have found do not include a diacritic
for "non-syllabic".  For transcribing words like the German <Uhr> IPA
/uːɐ̯/, X-SAMPA /u:6_^/ such a symbol would be useful.  If there is no
such diacritic, is there a reasonable replacement?

The author I'm copyediting uses the terms "the Right" and "the
Left" (as in political positions), but according to CMS 8.72, if one
writes "on the right," it is lowercased. If one writes "of the right,"
would you keep it lowercased as well? For example: "the influences and

This extract is from a discussion on new cameras on DPReview.com,
the contributor is from Brazil. Almost poetic in style.
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Ðat is old news, ðey had pre-announced ðe ſyſtem, but not ðe camera, laſt