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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“The essence of this book and that book was identical.”
“The essences of this book and that book were identical.”
If they were identical, they are one and the same, so I feel that the first is correct.
Where did the expression “pet peeve” come from?
We always used to call these { } “wavy brackets.” Are they ever legitimately used in non-mathematical writing as, say, within-a-sentence punctuation?
I just wonder how can we name the decades of the 2nd millennium. i.e. we say “during 80′s”. How we say “during (20)10′s”? or “2020′s” etc.?
I’ve read this “old gag” in an Interview with Hitchcock and did not have a damn clue what it could be. Can anybody help? Hitch says: “A for ism, B for brooks, C for Ilander, D for dumb, F for vessence, H for pension, I for Novello, J for orange, K f’rancis, L for leather, M fa size, I’ve forgotten what N’s for. O for the wings of dove. P for relief. Q for food. R fuh mo! S for you. T for two. U fa films. V va la France. W. I can’t remember W. X for breakfast. Y for God’s sake. And Z f’r winds.” I actually get the M, P, T and Y. But what are the rest referring to?
When do I use colon and semi colon within a sentence?
Do you say “Seventeen kinds of thread?” or “Seventeen kinds of threads?”
Was reading an interview with Peter Greenaway last night and he was asked: “What’s the excitment of essentially halving the amount of information on the screen by mirroring it?” I just thought to myself I would certainly hear or understand the word, HALVING as if it was HAVING! How could one really differ these two when talking? They are pronounced just the same. And in this case both correct.
What’s the difference between “irrepresentablity” and “unrepresentablity”? I saw these two in a translation of Jacques Derrida’s and he has a very careful language. So he must meant two different things.
Does anybody know any reference to look up for the exact “English” pronunciation of the Greek names such as Aeschylus, Euripides etc? These are of course common names and traceable in some talking dictionaries. I mean the weirder names.
