Discussion Groups / English Usage / March 2009

The "shivering" must be emotional, not temperature-related, I guess?
"Pared pencils" is practically inexistent at Google Books, while
"sharpened pencils" is quite frequent. Any reason for its use? BrE?
---

I encountered this expression while reading an article introducing a
new storage device.
Would someone explain to me what "plunking down the green" means?
Thanks.

In spite of the fact that the word "introductional" can't be found in
dictionaries there are lots of entries in google.
Can it be used instead of "introductory"?
Thanks in advance.

Are both "approved" and "approved of" possible here? If so, any
differences?
---
He wore a tweed suit with a waistcoat and watch chain, and

Is there a term for cars used for making money, as opposed to private
cars?
Thanks for reply!

Is the following correct?
1. John has done better than you do.

"we can find the digital footprints of the smoking guns the other side
doesn’t want to turn over."
Source: http://www.hutchersonlaw.com/

Lucia at The Blackboard needs a word that means ...
... well, there isn't such a word yet so I can't really say with any
great succinctness (or indeed any small prolixity) which word is
missing, but here are the choices:

I don't have a question or a comment. It's well documented on line...
I just like saying it.
Oh, wait a minute... maybe one question.
Can anyone think of a similar case of a word that was invented for a

We had some discussion last week about the "I gots to" construction which
the poster had heard in the film 'Dirty Harry'.
Today I found it re-reading Joseph Wambaugh's "The New Centurions" (which
came out in 1971, same year as Dirty Harry).

Last night I was watching Bear Grylls (an estuary-speaker, more or
less, I think) escape Hell's Canyon down the Snake River (Idaho, or
maybe Oregon), and heard him use an expression that I'm unfamiliar
with.  He was crossing the current, using his inflated pack-liner for

One definition of "staple" is an agricultural product grown not to
feed one's family, but simply to sell for cash--such as cotton.  What
is the counterpart for this term--i.e., that means an agricultural
product grown to subsist on--but not a staple? Would that be "crop"?

What's the differences among these things:
front pages, fly page, head page, and title page.

I guess this is what one would mean by "fenders" in boating:
ttp://www.flickr.com/photos/lawatt/47193371/
------
[One of the fishing boats has lost power. The other one tries to tie to

I was about to correct Associated Professor to Associate
Professor when I checked it on Google and found it to be
surprisingly common. A quick perusal, however, shows that many of
the people who use this title are in countries like Ukraine,