Discussion Groups / English Usage / April 2010

Let me ask you about the meaning of commission in the following
sentences
from a novel.
Well, your dream subject did't do well suppressing interfering

----
The Guaraní missions are all that remain of a 17th- and 18th-century
utopian social experiment — call it theocratic communism for lack of a
better term — that has fascinated thinkers for hundreds of years.

says Sky and BBC teletext - it beat off some 3-D thing about a dragon.
What a wonderful American expression 'kick-a.s' is - I keep hearing
English star Aaron Johnson saying,
'I'm Kick-a.s!',

I'm curious how this English English term came to be - "jobsworth".
It means an uncooperative or bureaucractic worker.
PsS
--------------------------------------------------------------------

http://hammerglam.topcities.com/actresses/stensgaard/stensgaard05.jpg
Stan and Jack hated their new uniforms until two Swedish beauties,
Ingrid (Yutte Stensgaard) & Birgit, decided they looked like 'airline
pillots'!

This is Al Pacino's part in the movie. In the last sentence:
"you never open your mouth till you know what the shot is."
what is a "shot," a slang for a "situation?"
-----

This is Jack Lemmon' part in the movie.
"Murray?  When was the
           last time he went out on a sit?"
Is "sit" real-estate jargon? Is it perhaps a "(live/real) case?"

How did it happen, that the English word is 'trojan' instead of
'troyan'? The city was Troy, not Troj !  I can't find any info online on
what exactly made this form of the word the accepted one. (Just so you
know why I ask - in other languages it /is/ 'troyan', there is no 'dzh'

Is "namely" closer to an exclusive enumeration/listing, allowing the
set mentioned before it to contain the items listed after it but not
something  else, or to "eg" or "for example," which, IMO, allow me to
think that the overall set contains other elements beside those listed

A student whom I am taking a visceral dislike to.
Or
A student about whom I am taking a visceral dislike.

So isn't there some transformation or conversion that need occur for B
that doesn't need to occur for A?
Is this sentence right?    
I'm not asking about the use of B and A.

Can anyone tell me what "imaginaire" means?
I gather it is a theoretical term, possibly related to anthropology, but have
not been able to find an explanation of its meaning.

My non-native English speaking wife was relaying a short story to me
earlier featuring the consumption of skimmed milk, but she referred to
it as "skinny milk".
When I pointed out that the word is "skimmed" (I didn't explain why)

"Rows of pots and very little jam"
is this an idiom meaning, perhaps, that only a few of those admitted
graduate?
---

What's the exact meaning of "as in so many" here? Is it just a device
to create a metaphor, perhaps "armchairs, shells in fact?"
The French version was well mirrored in this case, as it says "en de
profonds fauteuils, comme dans autant d'ecrins." However, this doesn't