Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2010

From a quiz near the back of a free newspaper:
  The Roman army, way back when,
  Used this to mean 'kill one in ten',
  But nowadays, sad to relate,

Lyrics analysis.
• Space Oddity by David Bowie
 http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/sanga_pemci/space_oddity_david_bowie.html
following is a plain text version. (no embeded video or formatting or

Can one say:
a. Not most of them are happy.
b. Most of them are not happy.
Meaning: 1) It is not true that most of them are happy.

I am confused with the meaning of the verb "see" in the following
sentence
"Commodities saw high increases in the price included transport
services ( up 1.48 percent), housing and construction materials (up

Happy Mid-Year Day to you all!  (Belatedly for those for whom it is
now July 3!)
Yes, July 2 is the middle day of the year. Indeed, the "Mid-Year
Moment" occurs at NOON.** At that time, 182.5 days of 2010 will have

In some recent spam, I noticed the subject:
Miss World Aishwarya ... Videos Taking Her Bath
Note the use of the word "Her".  That got me wondering about such
usage.  Does the bath belong to "her"?  Does she own that bath?  Would

What does
"to flunk it _over_"
mean?
---

In the following sentences
1. During a hurricane, I don't even go out.
2. During a hurricane, I even don't go out.
Are they both grammatical/idiomatic and mean the same thing? More

I want to express the following meaning:
The rice volume was up 10%, sugar volume was up 20%,  salt volume was
up 300%, steel volume was up 350% over the past two months.
I want to write a compact sentence and would like to omit the

I want to express the following idea:
Because A rejects an offer from the company, B was selected for the
position. So B got the benefit from A's offer rejection.
I write three sentences. Please tell me what sounds more idiomatic to

There is a letter to the Editor of The Times (of London) today from a
reader who says that the World Cup has been a disaster for him: "My
parrot has learnt to mimic the vuvuzela".

Would
"would slander"
equally work?
Differences?

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From "The Grammer In USE"
Compare these examples:
(1) Lisa has lost her watch. She tells Sue:

Any reason why
"as I now write"
is much more frequent than the progressive/continuous
"as I'm now writing"

We've discussed before about how Americans use vowel length to signal
voicing on the following consonant and how it sometimes causes
confusion when we hear speakers who don't.  Today I was watching the
the England/Germany game and got brought up short by the British