Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

1. Knock at the door.
2. Knock on the door.
Are they perfectly interchangeable? I don't think so, but I'd
appreciate feedback.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
Does "shed insight on [something]" or "shed insight [into something]"
make sense?
(Google shows large numbers of hits for either phrase.)

Is it true Korean script was DESIGNED and not just chaotically evolved?
Consider the 3 constructs:
1.His job was to separate X-grains from Y-grains with tweezers.
2.His job was to separate diamonds from pebbles with great care.

Overheard on tonight's news:  "The two cars that collided were both
traveling in opposite directions."
Bill in Kentucky

The Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway has announced the winners of
her 2009 Management Guff Awards. The full article is accessible (today)
from the FT front page, which shows the address www.ft.com/home/uk in my
Firefox address panel, by clicking on Lucy under the masthead ...

I was trying last night to remember the name of those man-powered
railway vehicles that one sees in westerns and cartoons -- basically
a four-wheeled platform with a pump-like lever to make it go.
Googling a bit, I came across "handcar" and thought "That must be

Are the below sentences correct?  Is there variance or is there a hard
and fast rule?  Where can I point others to educate them, e.g., an
online source addressing this particular issue?
The veterinarians served the Labrador retrievers last because they

Are tailors considered:
- craftsmen
or
- crafts people (I don't think so)

If Marmite is unknown in the US or at best considered strange and
unpalatable, does that mean they don't have Twiglets either?
DC
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As one who has long been attentive to usage, I have noticed changes.
Sometimes I wonder over what period these changes took place.  Usually it
seems to me that they have occurred over the preceding ten to fifteen years.
 But I have formed that estimate so often that I now think ...

Is
"to put his nose at something/it"
an idiom?
Now, what is the meaning of

"quickened me"
is this
"make me livelier, give me some energy?"
"set me right with myself"

Yesterday I was at an event at which sustainability was the topic of
discussion - specifically the embedding of and reporting on
sustainability in organisations, a project organised by the Prince's Trust.
The word "embedding" was used by every speaker in almost every sentence

Does a hamburger wrapped in thin pastry have a more specific name than
"pub pie"? Am I right in thinking it is a pub pie, at all?

We are the world, we are the children....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmxT21uFRwM&feature=related
Even if you've seen this before, it's worth another look and listen.
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