Discussion Groups / English Usage / April 2010

Why do all the movies now have awful special effects?
SOUND EFFECTS
No matter what the action is, there's always a generic, heard-it-before,
spatially ambiguous, mechanically unreal whoosh, phsss, or whumpf that

Someone's asking:
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Which is correct please as I see that both alternatives in each are
fine?

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.

Let me ask a question about "Easter Bunny" in the following sentences
from a novel.
"We don't sell Cubans or anything else illegal."
"I ain't accusing you and I ain't ATF or the FDA or the Surgeaon

(Non-native English speaker/writer here)
What's the difference between the two? "Border" seems much more common,
but I don't see any sign that "demarcation" is not in use any longer.
Is it a USEnglish vs. UKEnglish thing?

Is "to have done" still used as "in order to clear/finish the issue/
thing,  be over with it?" I haven't heard it before.
I expected "to be done with me."
The French version is "pour en finir."

In a Canadian writ of summons for libel, almost every time the
plaintiff's lawyers deny the truth of a claim made about him, they
write 'not/not' (always underlined) rather than simply 'not'. For
example:

Subject (repeated): Baby falls from monument in aircraft in flight
While collected information from official websites about aircraft and
volvanic ash from Iceland I found a _List of Safety Information_ from
the European Aviation Safety Agency.

When I was in college, I had a roommate named Hoffman but he
pronounced it Huffman. From Wisconsin iirc.
I figured it was a family preference.
Finally 40 years later, I hear Michael Feldman, who is from Wisconsin

Could
"he asked after me from the other buffoons"
be shortened to
"he asked after me the other buffoons"

Following the discussion about dispersing funds
Serbia moves to diffuse war crimes dispute with Bosnia
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/serbia/7632435/Serbia-moves-to-
diffuse-war-crimes-dispute-with-Bosnia.html
or, if that's too long: http://tinyurl.com/3yb7gxq

I'm doing a self-study review of English grammar and punctuation. I
purchased a new style guide, a short one. Now I will read it. There
are no exercises. I am also doing some vocabulary exercises and will
throw in some of those to keep it interesting and to generate some

1. I did embrace the person I had been arguing with, but in embracing
him I did not change my position.
I see two readings wrt "in" in "in embracing":
a) a temporal reading: "when," or "while"

It's a bit odd that we can speak of our "sons," "daughters," and
"children" when they are small.
But we can only speak of our "sons" and "daughters" when they are
older.

Is this construction with "so" in use these days?
I think I hear more of "so much."
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[In Africa, very warm]