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1500 questions
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3 answers

What is the meaning of "officially" here?

I am playing a PC game. After a lot of bad things happened that day, my character said , "Okay…this is officially the worst day ever.” How can I interpret “officially” here? The dictionary does not help because it seems none of the definitions…
luxury20041985
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15
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3 answers

Why use an adjective after a noun?

I heard phrases like "place nice" and "place safe" several times during watching series and movies and each time I was wondering why an adjective stands after a noun while they teach that adjectives go strictly before nouns. Unfortunately, all what…
voloshin
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12 answers

"Dog" can mean "something of an inferior quality". What animals do we use, if any, to describe the opposite?

The noun, dog, can be used to indicate something of an unattractive/unworthy feature/quality. Merriam-Webster defines it as 8: one inferior of its kind the movie was a dog : such as a: an investment not worth its price b: an undesirable piece of…
B Chen
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15
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5 answers

What is the difference between scissors and shears?

I never saw this word "shears", but I found it on the internet and I went to search the meaning of that. Well, if scissors and shears have the same meaning. Let me know how to use each one.
Andreia
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15
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4 answers

What does the phrase "building hopping chop" mean here?

Here is a sentence from an endless runner game: Building hopping chops is a good strategy to avoid unexpected dangers. The player is advised to leap to the side when she sees any danger or goes near a risky corner.
curious
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15
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1 answer

What do you call the walking lanes in lecture rooms?

What do you call the walking lanes in lecture rooms? You can't call it a stair, because it's not really a stair, you can't call it a corridor either. The only word I can think of is walking lane, but I doubt it's called that. Isn't there a more…
Sayaman
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15
votes
10 answers

What do you call the action of "describing events as they happen" like sports anchors do?

What do you call the action of "describing events as they happen" like sports anchors do? I heard the word "commentary", but I doubt "commentary" actually refers to the action of describing an event as it's happening. Also, I am wondering what the…
Sayaman
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15
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6 answers

How do we say "within a kilometer radius spherically"?

How do we say "within a kilometer radius spherically"? When we say radius, we think of a circle, so how do you specify that you're thinking of a sphere when you say "within a kilometer radius"?
Sayaman
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15
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6 answers

You've spoiled/damaged the card

Two people were playing cards. So a person folded a card by mistake. So what sounds natural: You have spoilt the card. You have damaged the card. Do both "spoilt" and "damaged" sound natural?
It's about English
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15
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11 answers

"Official wife" or "Formal wife"?

I want to use a term to mean that the speaker has been recorded as the wife of X in a civil registry officially and legally. I don't know what is the usual word to use in this case, I have searched "formal wife", but all I got is "former wife" which…
Learning Equals Success
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15
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5 answers

What would you call this weird metallic apparatus that allows you to lift people?

The metallic bar that forms like a sort of inclined v, what would you call it. What's the most specific term you can find for it, and what's the most general term (name not related to its function if it's possible) you can find for it? I would like…
aLex
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15
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5 answers

How to pronounce the slash sign

There is another common business type of partnership 51% / 49%. Would it be correct to say “to” instead of the slash sign while speaking, like: 51% to 49% If “to” is wrong, please correct me.
user90151
15
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4 answers

"Starve to death" Vs. "Starve to the point of death"

About a year ago, I had an on-line friend, a native speaker, chatting with me. When I sent a message to him saying: I'm starving to the point of death. He rephrased that as: I'm starving to death. But now that I think about it, and googled…
dolco
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15
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4 answers

What does "don't have a baby" imply or mean in this sentence?

This is really, really confusing as the literal meaning of "don't have a baby" — being pregnant or give birth to a child — does not fit the context at all. My guesses are: Don't act like a baby, be brave and face it. Do nothing else, so as not to…
user86301
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15
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4 answers

"Physician's writing" - "to scribble like a chicken with claw"

Is there any phrase for describing when someone writes extremally illegibly? In Poland it's called "physician's script", or there's an idiom "pisać jak kura pazurem", which literally means "to scribble like a chicken with claw". It's very popular…
Danubian Sailor
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