Discussion Groups / English Usage / March 2009

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[The sheriff shows up at the judge for a search warrant]
The sheriff sat and adjusted his legs. He set his hat on the floor.
Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars, p. 195

What exactly "to batten down" means in this context?
Fix with some small pieces of wood?
"Guy wires," just some rope/chain?
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"To run his car engine": is it to start it and let it run for a while,
in order to warm up during winter, before leaving on a trip?
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[Heavy snowfall and its effects]

is this sentence correct?
"Mr X designed Tool Box, available online at zxxyyss.com"

What "brattle" are we talking about here?
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A kerosene lantern flickered orange in the window of Hatsue's home, her
door stood open, ajar ten inches, and an angle of lantern light spilled

"I don't have the Oxford English Dictionary at hand."
"I don't have the Oxford English Dictionary to hand."
"all the evidence at hand"
"all the evidence to hand"

'Vanilla' is sometimes used to mean 'plain.'  E.g., a software package
called HTML with no third-party add-ons could be called vanilla HTML.
There are lots of variations on vanilla ice cream, but there's the
original plain vanilla.  Should it be called 'vanilla vanilla ice

How do we tell whether an English department is a good or bad English
departmentr?
For example, if a survey is done by the students and the results show
that the students

The nickname for Edingburg is usually "Auld Reekie" (old smokey), but
has Glasgow also had this name or has Glasgow ever had the same nickname
as Edingburg? If not, what nickname do Glasgow have?

I haven't studied this in any depth so it's informal and anecdotal, but
I'm curious...
In North America the brand name Hyundai is pronounced to rhyme with
'sunday,' in the UK (if 'Top Gear' is any indication) it's pronounced

We need honest accountants, honest lawyers and competent teachers or
we are goingto become a third-world basket case !
http://surftofind.com/trust

I've revised and resubmitted one of my papers some days before.  Now,
the state of this paper is _with editor_.  My issue is: If I want to
express the state of this paper, what should I say?  Which of the
following should be most appropriate?

Which of the many meanings of "lay" is used here, in your opinion?
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[WWII, on a military transport ship, preparing for landing]
At 3:20 in the morning, wide awake in his bunk, Ishmael heard the order

The other day I watched a 1971 movie in which at one point a minor
character says "I gots to know."  The setting in San Francisco and
the speaker is black.
Was "I gots" really a dialect usage in that time and place, or is

Heard from a homeless woman on Sky News this morning:
"The kind of life I had at that particular point in time..."