Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2009

Susan and I are teaching ourselves how to do cryptic crossword puzzles. By
working together, we have graduated from the Yorkshire Evening Post (which
we now see as relatively easy) to the Daily Telegraph. On one (and only one)
occasion, recently, we completed a Grauniad puzzle.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
This time I want to understand the sentence pattern: [Somebody] is
considerate of/to [Somebody else].
1. You should be considerate of your mother.

A quotation from a review:
"... a rich, melodic orchestral sound that sometimes reminds of Ralph
Vaughan Williams".
I find it strange to see the verb "remind" without a direct object like

Isn't it interesting that no shorter phrase has come into use for "air
conditioner"? "Conditioner" all by itself refers to hair conditioner,
and I don't think a phrase "hair conditioner" even exists.
Compare "machine" for "answering machine" in less than a decade after

Is 2 impossible?
1. The number of students who got high marks is large.
2. The number of the students who got high marks is large.
--

From the Department for Business Innovation and Skills website
http://www.bis.gov.uk/mandelson-outlines-future-of-higher-education
Key measures set out in the framework include:
    * More competition between universities, giving greater priority to

"Yesterday it was eighteen degrees, fourteen degrees at best."
I heard this said on the English television weather forecast yesterday. At
first I thought it sounded as an error, but then, upon reflection, I recall
that the meteorologist was speaking of how it was to become colder ...

Seems as how I haven't seen Bob Cunningham's name here for quite a
while.  Did the senile old sod finally die?

»You need to get this fixed. Like now.«
 Does this mean »You need to get this fixed immediately.«?
 And where does this wording »Like now.« come from?
     »Anyone feel like sushi, like now?«

Is this
"could have brought the whole thing down over her head"
an idiom?
Does it mean openly confront someone, force them confront the truth?

Am I right in assuming that the indicative ("is") substituting for the
subjunctive ("were") is tolerated much more in:
1) "Suppose this is the case. What to do now?"
than in:

Is there anything wrong with the following sentence?
"Whatever does the job can do."

The Epic of Carl Heinrich Graun (1703/4-1759)
As the clouds of night were dispersed by light
and as Rosie fingered Dawn,
in a Saxon town, home to August Graun

to Frankie Avalon in Haunted House of Horror (1969) on BBC2 the other
week!
Frankie, laughing, said,
'What?',

1. I personally heard them talking about it.
2. I personally heard them talk about it.
Comparable stats at Google Books.
I'd say the 2nd describes catching a clip of the conversation, the