Discussion Groups / English Usage / March 2010

Can you please tell me guys why: "I won't probably be at work" is wrong  
while "I probably won't be at work" is ok?
Best Regards

I've some difficulty in understanding the following sentence:
It turned out to be too simple to be true.
Any hints will be highly appreciated.
BR.

"The cab tolled slowly past."
What "toll" is this? They certainly don't want to make noise.
---
[Passing by the motel in a cab, trying to see from the outside if

Which is the right way to write sentences uttered by a suspect in a
video footage.
1. Let us look at this part of the video carefully. I think he said,
"kill him" in this part and "burn that" five seconds later.

<
Freedom of the Press?
<
Don't make me laugh!

A post by Mark Liberman at http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2217 
with the same subject line as this illustrates how far some will go to
preserve the purity of our language, expressed in words that may bring
a blush even to Rey's cheek.

In the U.K., that is.
I first came across that use in "Mary Poppins." The scene is in the
Snake House at the zoo. Not being British, I'd never have guessed what
type of snake P.L. Travers meant if it hadn't been for Mary Shepard's

www.chronicle.com
50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice
By Geoffrey K. Pullum
April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book

"hot engine"
does this mean
"an engine in demand on the market?"
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Any sense on when to say "door" and when "doorway" in
"stood in the door/doorway?"
---
[Police offices]

In the TV show, High Chaparral, the dysfunctional Cannon family had
patriarch Big John Cannon who was a well-read, highly educated man -
sadly, the family didn't spend much on Big John's brother Buck
Cannon's tutoring.

"swung the bed sideways with one hand"
did he lift the bed, then moved it to a side, rotating it in fact
around one of the bedposts?
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I'm not sure if:
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watershed
1 : WATER PARTING

I've just seen an email that had evaded the spam filters.
It is for Viagra, etc. The details are in an image (which is how it
fooled the filters).
The claim for one of the pills is that "enlages the penis". That must be

What is a deprofessionalised intellectual?
'Gustavo Esteva is a deprofessionalised intellectual based in Oaxaca,
Mexico. He is an advisor to the Zapatistas and founder of Universidad
de la Tierra in Oaxaca'