Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009

I'm unsure about commas and "of which."
Is the sentence below correct, or should I omit the comma before "of
which"? Is the comma necessary? I'm copyediting and can only alter the
text for correct punctuation/grammar.

What is the meaning of "cut from a different cloth"?

I decided to read the teen novel _Twilight_ over vacation.  In it, several
of the characters refer to "going to prom."
When I was of an age to care, I would have said "going to *the* prom."
But, now that I pay attention, I do occasionally hear it referred to

Below is a question I prepared for a questionnaire on labor market issues
that will appear online in the US. Please consider the question as if you
are a survey respondent. Then tell me what was not clear to you in the
question. I am asking your help to see the problems of the ...

Are there standard ways to write and to speak multiples of names
ending in the letter s? For example,
 * Three people called Peter: Three Peters (not Peter's)
 * Three people called James: <what?>

How many grammar mistakes are there in the following message?
"Many HK Chinese have a peculiar tradition.  They like to lecture on
others how to 'do man'(behave correctly) when they are more
financially

Couldn't resist this:
[quote]
Family see Jesus image in Marmite
It may not be immediately obvious to everyone, but one family are

  I am in process of writing a cover letter for my next job search
and the current version looks like
************************************************************************************************************************************
<To days date>

Some years ago I heard or read a 'poem' about a cow who took to
walking across a railway bridge, and up there met a train. I don't
recall the details, but as I understand it it did not end well.
I am sure the word used for the bovine was heifer, and I never

Imagine John, 23, has two brothers older than him; George, 27 and
Jack, 30. He also has another brother named Jason, who is younger than
him.
If John wanted to describe his brothers to his teacher, how would he

I see the following article on the web. Although I check the word
filibuster in a dictionary, I am still unclear its meaing in this
sentence at the end of this post. In the dictionary, the difinition of
filibuster is:

Very often, when a person is going through a difficult time, we'll
hear another person say to them, "Our prayers are with you."
What do you suppose this means?
Is it equivalent to "we hope your situation improves"?  I suspect this

Em deserves his own thread here.  Some famous person passes and gets a
thread even though we have no personal knowledge of that person.
Often, the otherponders (depending on the now-late person involved)
have never even heard of that person.

Pretty Liverpudlian Hannah Kiernan (Candy from Partyland) used to say,
'Keep them texts coming in',
but now she says,
'Keep THOSE texts coming in'.

Two Tom Swifties prompted by recent threads:
"Whither thou goest, I will go in the opposite direction,"
said Tom __________.
"No, I don't know why it's called a tandem," said Tom  __ ______.