Discussion Groups / British English / April 2004

I write English poems and I'm Italian. Anyone interested in reading them
and judge them?
Thanksalot.
Warthoggie

Does anyone know what a starre is?  It's not on dictionary.com and not
in Chambers.
The context is this verse from Barry MacSweeney, (1945 - 2000), an
English poet whose Selected Poems have just been published and

Empiricism ... is opposed to all forms of ilituitioflalism
( http://3.1911encyclopedia.org/E/EM/EMPIRICISM.htm )
Can anybody tell me what this means, or is it an ordinary typo?
As English is not my mother-tongue, I do not see what it schould

I noticed a real schoolboy howler on the BBC News website earlier
today.  A house was to be 'raised' to the ground.  Someone placed too
much reliance on spellcheckers, it seems.  But it was soon corrected
to 'razed'.

I'm back with one of my favourite topics.
From the afterword (1980) by David Lodge to "The British Museum Is Falling
Down".
"Nevertheless it would be idle to pretend that *I would have thought* of

During a recent trip to Marseilles, my travelling companion who is fluent in
French, made me approach the front desk of the hotel and utter these words
supposedly to book a room for the night:
"Excusez-moi. Je suis un étranger ici et j'ai juste attrapé mon chinois dans

/Be able to/ is similar to /can/.  The reason it's not an
auxiliary verb is that it uses a conjugation of /to be/ as the
main verb.  Likewise, /have to/ and /need to/ are similar to
/must/, but they use /have/ and /need/ respectively as the main

After writing, "You can judge the efficacy of that technique for
yourself," I wondered whether I should have used
"efficaciousness."  AFAICT, the words mean precisely the same
thing.  The etymologies are the same.  MWUCD11 says that

Hello group!
Could someone help with the following doubt I have?
The context: a toast at a wedding.
The toast starts "From your family and friends"

I knew the word "bush league" (minor league), but
I didn't know "bush" (unprofessional) by itself can be
used as an adjective.
____ My question: How common is this usage? ____

I'm looking for the correct term for the shadow in pictures,
which only appears if the flash is directly aimed at the
subject. Usually seems to be on the wall behind the subject.
Can anyone help me with this?

is the phrase "as best I can" the same as "as best as I can" in english?
thank you

I've been reading with interest the reactions to the latest Harry
Potter book in which J.K. Rowling used "span" instead of the more
usual "spun" as the past tense of "spin".
The US view is in accordance with their 1828 Webster dictionary: span

I am looking for someone who can help me a little with my homepage which is
written in English. A Native English speaker would be excellent Please send
me an email. Thank you very much in advance.
Kind regards,

Some fashion man was keep saying "kootur" something about closet or clothes?
Is it an english word?
Thanks in Advance.