Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Proofreading Services Retired

We’ve officially closed our proofreading services. You can probably guess why. With AI tools like ChatGPT now doing the job for free (and instantly), the demand for human proofreaders has all but vanished. If you still prefer a human touch, you're part of a rare—and shrinking—breed. We're now back to our roots: a forum for nitpicking the finer points of the English language. Thanks for your past support. We appreciate it.

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Latest Posts

How do you negate the word deliberate? Undelibertae is not correct according to dictionaries. What then?

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I’m having a very hard time figuring out how to ask which seasons a character is missing from in a television show. I started like this:

“Which seasons is he not in?” but that sounded wrong, so I tried “Which seasons are he not in?” but that also sounds wrong.

I’m having a hard time with this one for some reason.

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If octo means 8, why is October the 10th month?

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When do you use “mother fucker” and when do you use “mother fucking”? Does the later indicate a kind of dialect?

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The T which meets the word YOU is usually pronounced somewhat like CH, right? Such as “got ya!” or “what you...”. Just wonder how one can write the sound. Is there an agreeable way to write it? As we almost agree to write “gotta” for “have got to”?

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Is just s or ‘s used with acronyms? Like MBAs or MBA’s and SWPPP’s or SWPPPs

Is the rule always the same for all acronyms or are there variations?

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The meaning of “No Woman No Cry” is now controversial in Japan. “No Woman No Cry” is a title of a song written by Bob Marley, a famous Jamaican Reggae artist. I’ve thought that the meaning is “There is no woman who does not cry”. However, someone says the meaning is “Women! Do not cry !”. I’d like to know the explanation by English native speakers. Thank you.

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Does anyone know what happened to the poor P of the psychology? Why is it silent? Why is it written? Does anybody also know why the K in know, knife, knee etc. is mute? I guess it has nothing to do with Kafka! Does it?

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This is obviously wrong, but I can’t figure out how to fix it without rewording the whole thing. Can anyone help?

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Where do we put question mark, dot, exclamation mark etc. when a sentence ends with a quotation mark? Before or after the closing quotation mark? (”...where?” or “...where”?) or where?!

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