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

Which one is correct? 1. Honey and milk are my favorite. or 2. Honey and milk is my favorite. My answer is number 1, but my friend said no.2 because both nouns are uncountable.

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Is it “Fort Knox’s walls” or “Fort Knox’ walls”?

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When CC: a person(s) in a business letter, is it necessary to fully type their business name after their name or is an abbreviation acceptable.

For example: CC; So-and-so FCCC or Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation

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Is it possible to pronounce steak as the /ea/ in weak is pronounced? Or should it always be pronounced as the /a/ in bake?

I’m from Norway, and we’we got steakhouses here, it’s no word for this in Norwegian. So when people pronounce this as the /ea/ in weak, is this incorrect, or is this possible in English too?

Thanks in advance.

Silje

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Data was handled... Data were handled...

I have forgotten the proper verb conjucation with “Data” vs “Datum”

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Can you use an ellipse thingu to sort of draw something out? Like if you were to say, “I think there was a turkey somewhere, but I’m not sure...” It’s bugged me, since there’s nothing about that in Wikipedia or on Websters online. ._.

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What does it mean when someone states that they were “read the riot act” or that THEY read someone else “the riot act”? Is there such a thing as a Riot Act. I haven’t been able to locate information on this.

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I am having a dispute with a colleague about the use of the word ‘Everyday’. Can you please clarify for me if the word has been used correctly in the following example:

Everyday over 50,000 pupils miss a day of school without permission and an estimated 7.5 million school days are missed each year through truancy.

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“For all it’s worth” or “for all its worth”?

e.g. He rolled the R for all it’s worth.

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Hi All. Take a look at this if you will:

“And my tire flattened as I was riding it to work this morning. The leak was slow enough that I could limp to work by pumping it up along the way (not recommended procedure, but tolerable for very short distances.)”

See mememachinego.com

Do you, or have you ever, used the expression (my/the tire flattened)?

It expresses an inchoative (bridging or transitional ) event. It focuses on the transition between “tyre is not flat” to “tyre is flat”. But would you, have you ever, or do you, use it?

Other examples:

I liked him within a minute.

The weather changed.

The car rolled down the hill.

My situation changed this morning.

Stevie is ripping his script up. (causative-inchoative)

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