Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2009

"before the poor lady had crossed the stream"
Do you recognize this from somewhere else in the literature? My
searches didn't give anything but this part in James. I wonder if
James made here a connection to other works.

I this
"to my belief"
still used instead of
"I believe?"

Does
"he had seen two and a circus"
mean
"he had seen everything?"

There seems to be a reference here to "The Vicar of Wakefield" by
Oliver Goldsmith.
Now, what then would
"the high flights"

"She's in my confidence"
does it mean
"She has my confidence?"
Still used?

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm waiting impatiently for Marius to move on to
a writer who can be understood. James Joyce, for example.
Oops. Marius, that wasn't a serious suggestion.

Hi, native speakers of English,
can you talk about "the losses of the two space shuttles Challenger and Columbia" or do you have to you say "the loss ..."?
Thank you for your comments,
Ho

English has a different way of labeling parts of the day than my first
language, Persian. This has led to my confusion, especially when it
comes to the difference between "evening" and "night". Pls check the
brief defintions of the different parts of the day below and correct

I mentioned in the "gotten" post that there were a couple of other
things that struck me.
One was the use, in what seemed to be a respectable broadsheet, of
"earnt".  I wouldn't even have noticed some similar spellings --

The Times (of London) has "third leader" and two pages of aricles on
Wikipedia today.
The leader starts:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6930419.ece

"Polish you off"
does this mean
"eliminate (from my cares)?"
-----

I'm not quite getting:
"or were only not"
as I'd have expected
"or were not."

I have a question I'd like to ask.
I was writing a sentence the other day the following way:
---------------------
When you set up an appointment with a dentist, they usually

I'm not getting the meaning of:
"and in especial of all mysteries of race and vagueness of reference,
all swagger about "home," among their variegated mates."
in that sentence.

First,
"the place had never before struck him as so sacred to pleasant
knowledge"
does this mean that