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1500 questions
24
votes
7 answers
Does "upset victory" mean "a victory that people are not happy about"?
I'm reading a book Merriam-Webster's Vocabulary Builder. When it comes to the word acme, the author gives the following example:
Last Saturday's upset victory over Michigan may prove to have been the acme of the entire season.
I'm confused about…
Just a learner
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What does "cap" mean in this football (soccer) context?
What does "cap" mean in this football (soccer) context?
GOAL! Liverpool 1-4 Man City (Foden 83)
Phil Foden caps a majestic second-half performance with a blistering goal!
This can't be related to the noun cap, because that's only for international…
Jembot
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What is the name for this sarcasm-like form of words?
Is there a technical name for the common form of words whereby we refer to a thing -- often a person -- having a low level of some property, by saying that it does not have an especially high level of that property?
For example:
John is not the…
tkp
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24
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9 answers
I'm baffled at this expression: "If I don't talk to you beforehand, then......"
A client wrote to me and ended his email with this line:
If I don't talk to you beforehand, I hope you have a very happy,
healthy and safe holiday!
It seems to me that this expression is for giving a heads-up of information to someone when you…
Dean
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5 answers
Which is correct, and why? "My friend hasn't / hadn't been in church in two weeks"
Which one is correct and why?
"My friend hasn't been in church in two weeks."
or
"My friend hadn't been in church in two weeks."
These sentences make it difficult to know the difference between has, have and had.
ANDRIJANA BOGIĆEVIĆ
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3 answers
"Correct me if I'm wrong"
I had always had the impression that when people say, "correct me if I'm wrong", their underlying meaning is not to ask for correction but to stress that, "I'm 100% sure of what I'm saying", especially during heated debates.
Is that so? Please…
xpt
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What do you call a plan that's an alternative plan in case your initial plan fails?
I think there's a word or an adjective for it, but I don't remember what it was. I don't want to say plan B, because that's too informal, but I remember there was a good word for it. I just don't remember it anymore.
For example:
The army was…
frbsfok
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24
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3 answers
Using present simple when talking about a past event in spoken English
Philip：So, you're an exchange student. Where do you go to school?
Alexandra：At the Bronx High School of Science.
Philip：Oh, that's a very good school. What are your favorite subjects?
Alexandra：Biology and mathematics. Richard tells me you're a…
preachers
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4 answers
$2,000 worth of items: "two thousand dollar" or "dollars"?
How do say this in words?
A $2,000 worth of items.
If I put it into words: A two-thousand dollar/dollars worth of items.
Which is the correct way here?
John Arvin
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3 answers
What is the meaning of "stool” in the context of getting a job?
A biography of David Hume says
David Hume left the University of Edinburgh around 1733. Hume chose the job as a stool in a merchant's office in Bristol.
What is a stool?
user150248
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9 answers
What do you call or how do you describe this in English? overcooking the food? What do you call the black stuff?
In Persian, we say that (literal translation) the food has taken the bottom :D
What do you say when you want to say that the food in the pot was overcooked and something like the picture above happened to the pot?
Also, is there any specific term…
Cardinal
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24
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6 answers
Day vs 24h day?
In Russian (my native language) there are two words - "день" and "сутки". First means day, just a day, probably lightest part of it, second - 24 hours from 00:00 to 00:00. There is a strict difference between them. As I tried all of the dictionaries…
Serj.by
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24
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6 answers
Why can't we say snakes crawl?
Snakes crawl.
According to Longman and Collins dictionary crawl means:
to move slowly, either by dragging the body along the ground or on the hands and knees
so in my point of view it's OK to say snakes crawl, but in one of the previous…
anonymous
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I do not really understand the proposal: "Don't hate Monday. Make Monday hate you"
Please explain. I like to learn English. I do not really understand the proposal: "Don't hate Monday. Make Monday hate you". Help me to understand this sentence. I am very interested in this phrase.
It will be right or I not correctly think? "Do not…
Vladimir Glinskikh
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5 answers
In “a so-called "HPACK Bomb" attack”, if "so-called" is not sarcasm then what is it?
I was reading this CVE describing a vulnerability in the implementation of a compression algorithm used in HTTP/2. The summary says:
A HTTP/2 implementation built using any version of the Python HPACK
library between v1.0.0 and v2.2.0 could be…
Hay
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