Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Username

AnWulf

Member Since

June 19, 2011

Total number of comments

616

Total number of votes received

571

Bio

Native English speaker. Conversant in German, Russian, Spanish, and Anglo-Saxon.

Ferþu Hal!

I hav a pilot's license (SEL certificate); I'm a certified diver (NAUI); I'v skydived and was qualified as a paratrooper in the Army (Airborne!); I was a soldier (MI, Armor, Engineer).

I workt for a corporation, was a law enforcement officer, and a business owner.

Bachelor's in Finance; minor in Economics
Masters of Aeronautical Sciences

Strong backer of English spelling reform.

Browncoat

Now I'v written my first novel [ http://www.lulu.com/shop/lt-wolf/the-world-king-book-i-the-reckoning/ebook/product-22015788.html ] and I'm working on others.

http://lupussolus.typad.com
http://lupussolusluna.blogspot.com
http://anwulf.blogspot.com

Latest Comments

“American”

  • March 28, 2015, 1:06pm

"The Oxford Companion to the English Language":

America

In modern English, North and South America are generally considered separate continents, and taken together are called the Americas in the plural, ..., without a clarifying context, singular America commonly refers in English to the United States of America.

Since the 18c, a name of the United States of America.

---

This seems to only be a true problem in Spanish. As someone pointed out abuv ... and my Brazilian friends confirm ... in Brazilian Portuguese, an "americano" is someone from the US. As someone esle pointed out, in other tungs suchs as German, an "Amerikaner" is from the US. I livd in Germany for a few years and never met anyone who thought of an "Amerikaner" as anyone but someone from the US.

Nonetheless, we're talking about English here. Someone from the United States of Mexico (estados unidos de Mexico) is a Mexican, someone from the United States of America is an American as well as a North American. A Mexican is also a North American (as is a Canadian), an Argentian or a Brazilian is also a South American.

The US, Canada, and Mexico are part of the North American Free Trade Association. They are all North Americans.

Central America is a region of the continent of North America.

In English, an American refers to someone from the US. Otherwise, it is North or South American to refer to someone from one of the TWO continents In English it is not one but two continents and together they are the Americas (plural).

There is no confusion in English about this. Spanish speakers want to bring their confusion about the whole thing into English and act offended. Too bad.

A small clarification … sox is plural of sock. Thus, the Boston Red Sox is indeed plural.

As for the Heat, heat is a play on words. Miami is hot but also the word 'heat' can mean 'pressure' or even 'gun'; it is noted phrases like "put the heat on" or "the heat is on".

Opposition to “pretty”

  • March 20, 2015, 5:31pm

Is his teacher a nativ English speaker (or at least British taught by the note of "mates" insted of friends)?

There's no good reason that I can think of aside from maybe he thought his students were saying it too much and he was trying to get them to note other words.

“Rack” or “Wrack”?

  • January 19, 2015, 2:41am

OE wræc is also the root of wretch.

werwolf / werewolf
wergeld / wergelt/ wergild

Now, ‘were’ is noted to for any shapeshifting man-animal. There’s the weretiger ‘A creature of Southeast Asian myth; a shapeshifter who can assume the shape of a tiger.’, and in African myth and folklore, the ‘werehyena’. In syndry myths, fics, and games, there’s the ‘wererat’, the ‘werebear’, the ‘werepanther’, and more.

Werewolf and Weretiger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C45wwS1hUAk

“Anglish”

  • September 23, 2014, 10:40am

Pith is from OE piþa (þ=th). As for the shape pithy (pith+y), it shows up in ME as pithi (pithier, pithiest) often in the meaning of strong ... and the adv pithili (often in the meaning of thoroly).

a1400 (a1325) Cursor (Vsp A.3) 9384: And al-king thing was þan to trow Wel pithier [Göt: mihtier] þan þai ar now.

Siker ... from OE sicor, from Lat. securus (same as Ger. sicher) ... was both an adj and adv in ME. It was respelt 'secure' in the "back to Latin root spelling" moovment of the 16th yearhund (century). From 'secure (ly)' one can eathly note as 'certain(ly)' and it often was.

“Anglish”

  • September 10, 2014, 8:11am

I saw this in a sci-fi book over the weekend:

"English was the common tongue of the Imperium and seemed likely to remain so. Its flexibility, concision, and adaptability were certainly vastly preferable to Universal.

Throwing out the articles, to, and 'and', there 18 words. Of those, eight (8) or 44%, ar Anglo rooted … English, was, tongue, seemed, likely, so, its, were. The lave … common, imperium, remain, flexibility, concision (yuck … conciseness would hav been a tad better), adaptability, certainly, vastly, preferable, universal are Latinates.

Thankfully he wrote 'tongue' (French rooted spelling), 'seemed' and 'likely' rather than 'language', 'appeared', and 'probably'.

However, we can do better even tho a few of these are tuff words to swap out:

common - widespred, mainstream, main, overall
Imperium - Rike
remain - stay (Skeat has it of Teut. root), blive
flexibility - freedom, bendsumness, bendiness, stretchiness, litheness
concision - shortness, pithiness
adaptability - blendness, fitness, fittingness
certainly - wisly, gewiss, without nay, huru
vastly - greatly
preferable - better lik't
universal - all, overall, broad, everyday mainstream, one-tung … broad-tung

"English was the main tung of the Rike and seem'd likely to blive so. Its litheness, pithiness, and fittingness were without nay the better choosing than Broad-tung."

subwait

  • July 22, 2014, 10:28am

I gess my whole thought is that the word "subwait" is unneed unless it is an offshoot of a bigger waiting area ... thus the "sub-". A few chairs by a door isn't truly a waiting area as a waiting spot but then the name "subwait" is not only not needed but not fitting either.

If the "subwait" is indeed a smaller waiting room off to the side of the main waiting room ... or nearby ... then I still like "wait-cove" as a better. "Subwait" truly doesn't mean much to me ... again, it sounds like a place to wait for my sub sandwich or, if I were a sailor, a slip for a submarine.

subwait

  • July 21, 2014, 5:46pm

Then is it too much troubl to say ... "Wait by the door?" Do folks truly need to be told that they can sit in the chairs by the door?

However, the qwik look that I did, showed that a subwait is only slight smaller than the waiting room. Look at fig. 4-138 ... It indeeds looks more like a wait-cove:

http://books.google.com/books?id=DinDxI9yKMsC&pg=PA252&dq=subwait&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tIjNU7mmHajisASo-YHwDg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=subwait&f=false

subwait

  • July 12, 2014, 6:29am

Well, since they're noting 'wait' as noun for 'waiting room' then think of how one would say, "Go to the small waiting room." ... There it it ... 'small-wait'; 'side-wait'; or my favorit ... wait-cove (along the lines of OE bedcofa 'bedroom').

Questions

What can I do besides... October 8, 2011