Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009

Wiktionary marks "knock-on effect" as a specifically British idiom.
Is it really?

On The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he sometimes pronounces "America"
as "'murica" and it's funny.
Is Stewart extracting the Michael out of certain Americans? :-D
Nick from England

A push bike typically refers to bicyle (human powered).  I was talking
to a sport shop owner the other day and said that I was in the shop to
look at the push bikes not the motorbikes.
It's not an expression that I see or hear used frequently and I was

Oh no, you're thinking, not another one,
But yes, this tragic chorus I must sing.
  The coat I've borrowed from John Donne,
  Whom Marius to us did bring.

Would "laity" be "those not in the know?"
Also, I wonder if this is the final separation/death that Donne is
talking about (I see it as possible, esp taking into account
"mourning"), or just a temporary journey, as some of the commentators

Read it on a bag of Chifles platain chips, it says:
"The platain is a fruit that is imported from the same tropical countries
as bananas"
I don't know why exactly but this sentence makes my brain hurt everytime I

I've seen the following sentence:
Debugging is as much an art as it is a science.
Can we simplify the above sentence as the following one:
Debugging is as much an art as a science.

I posted a new blog post and started wondering is "3 UPS" correct or
should I say "3 UPSs" or "3 UPS's"?
Max Limitz
http://maxlimitz.blogspot.com/2009/05/is-three-ups-enough.html

I need your help.
Here is a sentence:
Nobody thought it possible to eat 53 hotdogs in 12 minutes.
Is the next sentence acceptable meaning the same as the one above?

I am reading a book "Being English in Scotland". The author claims about
English settlers that
"The language used to describe these settlers has been on occasion
intemperate, and, at times, insulting. Amongst a lexicon of epithets

I guess Blake means:
"And I stained the clear water"
right?
------

I would appreciate if you can re-write this paragraph I wrote about my
idea of  "First date" which is part of my online dating profile. I
want to see how it can be written differently so I can learn to
improve my style. Thanks a lot.

Consider the following tree sentences:
Careless caused him to fail the exam.
Careless caused him fail the exam.
Careless caused him failing the exam.

From nl.taal:
Dutch has the expression 'grijsdraaien', (lit. trans. [to] turn grey)
applied literally to 78 rpm grammophone records,
and more or less figuratively to 45 rpm singles and 33 rpm LPs.

Further to recent discussions here, the column by the Reader's Editor in
today's Guardian, about Maurice Jarre's obituary, offers a salutary
lesson in the use of Wikipedia.
http://tinyurl.com/djqd8w