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

580

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

“Anglish”

  • September 14, 2011, 6:20pm

Just found a new toy ... http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/ ... It lets you look at often words have been brooked in books over the years. Nothing really helpful but fun to play with. Forecast holds up fairly be foretell doesn't (against predict).

There's another thread on "Pain in the English" that has been running for seven years ... all over the spelling of "resume" and the brook of "curriculum vitae".

Quote of the day: "The every-day vocabulary of the less educated is of Old English, commonly called Anglo-Saxon, origin ..." from "The Romance of Words", 1912, Chapter 1.

I found another word that lives on from OE and can be found in the M-W wordbook tho only as a verb (it was a noun in OE), upspring: to come into being (originate), to rise up.

Also there is dree: to endure, suffer ... dree your weird (endure your fate/destiny ... you made your bed, now lie in it!).

I'v been thinking about words to use for "move" and its offspring ... motion, motor.

Resume, resumé, or résumé?

  • September 14, 2011, 6:01pm

Wow ... Seven years and counting! ... and I thought the Anglish thread was long!

FWIW, I managed to graduate college, get a masters, and several jobs and never once used CV and never spelled resume with an accent!

I suggest we dump both CV and resume and just use "work history".

FWIW, I think the falloff in the use of the word feminism is more due to its negative connotations. I know many women who believe in equality but eschew the title of feminist. And I have personally be told by a self-proclaimed feminist that it was time for payback against men ... So feminists, in my view, aren't for equality but for superiority. I am not alone in that thought and that is likely, at least in part, for the falloff of use.

As for African-American ... silly term and I don't use it. What do you call a white man born in Africa who emigrates to the US? Would he not also be an "African-American" or do we need to have a new word, "European-African-American".

How a black who emigrates to England? Do we call him "African-English"? It gets confusing for sport-announcers when covering an int'l event ...

While/among/amid vs whilst/amongst/amidst

  • September 14, 2011, 5:19pm

While, among, and amid are much older. I quote:

Whiles is recorded from early 13c.; whilst is from late 14c., with excrescent -st as in amongst, amidst.

amongst - a variant of among, mid-13c., amonges, from among with adverbial genitive. Parasitic -t first attested 16c

amidst - a variant of amid with adverbial gen. -s and parasitic -t. Amidde became amyddes (13c.) and acquired a -t by 1560s, probably by association with superlatives in -st.

“Anglish”

  • September 12, 2011, 10:37pm

Maybe it is because I'm tired but I don't see the OED's meaning of umwelt to being so unlike environment to worry about.

Umwalt OED
the world as it is experienced by a particular organism

Environment OED
the setting or conditions in which a particular activity is carried
the natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area ...

Not sure why habitat was brought into this but here is its meaning from the OED: the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism: ...

From a thesaurus for environment:

1 birds from many environments ... habitat, territory, domain; surroundings, environs, conditions.
2 the hospital environment ... situation, setting, milieu, background, backdrop, scene, location; context, framework; sphere, world, realm; ambience, atmosphere.
3 (the environment): the impact of pesticides on the environment the natural world, nature, the earth, the planet, the ecosystem, the biosphere, Mother Nature; wildlife, flora and fauna, the countryside.

Seems to me that whoever started using umwelt in English was just trying to show off his / her wordstock.

As they say ... The meanings of umwelt and environment are close enuff for gov't work! lol

Oblige to mean “force”

  • September 12, 2011, 8:11pm

If you're going to quote me ... finish it in context. "HERE is (sic) it is eath to swap ..." If you look at the list of synonyms ... bind is there. And it depends on how much the word has change in meaning ... HERE, it really hasn't. So not only is bind the Anglo translation of the root, it is part of the definition, and it is a synonym.

make (someone) legally or morally bound *** past tense of bind
bind (someone) by an oath, promise, or contract.
syn require, compel, bind,

Knowing the root can often lead to a better understanding of the word. If you don't know the root then strange things start to happen.

The frains were whether the sentence is correct and is it acceptable? The answer is yes to both. We have no context for how the sentence is used so we can only judge it as it is ... And as it is, it is correct and it is acceptable.

“Anglish”

  • September 12, 2011, 3:23pm

@Ængelfolc ... I agree with you. Eath and ease seem to be cousins. But you need to get someone with a bunch of stafs (staves?) behind his or her name to publish it in academia ... or at least post it on the web!

@Jayles ... That's good. I like unclouded. I'v alreddy used it!

Well, I just found out that the German word "umwelt" is in the OED. That takes care of the word environment! lol ... Now if we could just get 'em to list "zukunft"!

“Anglish”

  • September 12, 2011, 9:46am

Word Origin Influences Your Writing Voice

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/word-origin-influences-your-writing-voice/

Go and have your say.

Oblige to mean “force”

  • September 12, 2011, 9:45am

@goofy, in this byspel it does and it did ... I know allll about how folks try to make sundry shades of meaning ... huru those Latin-lovers ... that truthfully aren't there.

You must look at the root of the word. Here is it is eath to swap the Anglo word for the Latin and understand the meaning.

In the end, whether you like or not, the sentence is correct. It's not the way I would have written it but it is still correct.

“Anglish”

  • September 11, 2011, 11:32pm

I'v been stumped on how to um(b)-go (go around ... um+go or umb+go) clear, clearly and plain, plainly. Sometimes I can but often I can't without a lot of words. I found the answer. I'v checked "eath" before but it wasn't in OED. Who would hav thought it would be in Merriam-Webster but not in OED? But, on a lark, I checke M-W and there it was ... along with eathly and uneath.

In OE, it was also a noun meaning an easy to do.
And it was brooked as a forefast (hyphen not needed):
eath-seen ... easily seen, clear, plain
eath-fare ... easy to travel over
eath-find ... easy to find, easy to be found
eath-get ... easy to get, easily gotten
eath-yearn ... easily pleased
eath-win ... easy to win, easily won, easily obtained
... And many more!

So now I can say ... It's eath-seen (clear, obvious) that, blah, blah, blah.

Questions

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