Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2009

As the biological name of our species, Homo sapiens is singular, but I have the
impression from its usage (and the prevalence of 'Homo sapien') that most people
think of it as a plural. What is the technically correct plural? Some online
references give the plural as Homo sapiens ...

A human female's "sausage" is that area sideways up the titty between
the underarm and the nipple.

Has anyone come across the noun "charp" meaning "sleep"?
For example:
 "He's having a charp": "He having a sleep"
I heard this word used by a few people when I was in the Royal Air Force

Headline from the New York Times web site:
"White Sox¹ Buehrle Pitches Perfect Game"
From which I deduce the Times thinks the x in Sox takes an apostrophe to
form the plural possessive.

Just some decades ago, I used to see a certain ad very often,
 so I thought it should be quite well known. But now I can not
 find a single mentioning of it in the WWW. Possibly, I can not
 find it, because I do not remember it correctly.

"Maybe I'm one of those people who just doesn't
do well in school."
This I've read in a comic strip - would "who just don't"
be wrong? I'd rather have used that - or am I wrong?

"I’m spending less on food, just enough to survive, and (I'm)/(am)
losing weight as a result!"
Would you agree that "less" may be seen as both a noun and an adverb
here?

While browsing a list of medical news reports looking for Swine Flu
items I came across the phrase "discordant couples" in the one-sentence
summary of an article on a different disease topic:
   The anti-herpes drug acyclovir (Zovirax) failed to prevent

Women can be maneuvered through body references, like in my latest
post.
I am NOT a dimbulb! I know how to control the female psyche -- as any
mn.general female member is now aware!

How many syllables in vacuum?
I'm watching a Hitchcock episode from 1956 and I wonder if the
pronunciation there was unusual even then.

1. Which "Millerites" are these? Are they:
-----------

who taught that the end of the world and the second coming of Christ

"Murder Is Easy," in the series *Six by Agatha*, included in *Mystery!
*. But it wasn't entirely the actress's fault; she was given at least
three Anglicisms in her dialogue, which led to the suspicion that she
was actually faking her American background and would be revealed as

Does the phrase 'the sands of time' originally derive from a sand-
glass or from the shifting desert sands? I had always assumed the
latter as it is more aesthetic, but the former seems more likely.
Andrew Usher

The thesaurus has let me down!
What phrase (slang or formal) describes two people speaking in an
apparently private conversion but they want to be overheard in order to
put false ideas into a listener's head?

It's no surprise that for a non native English speaker a film like
"The Fooball Factory" is impossible to understand without (in my case:
Dutch) subtitles. My question is: is this film understandable for the
average Englishman or even the average Londoner, as it is so full of