I would go with

It's a toss up between this laptop versus that laptop, because they are so similar.

This is an English idiom, meaning that there is a choice where it is difficult to decide between one solution and another.

Some informal idioms that come to mind are:

It's a wash

It's six of one, half a dozen of the other Same difference

A phrase with a less informal feel is: The choices are comparable.

There's the idiom sitting on the fence (sometimes said as straddling the fence ).

This idiom is often used to describe someone who is having trouble taking sides in a controversial issue, but it can also refer to someone who is simply having trouble making a decision about something.

Which laptop are you going to get?

I don't know

- I'm sitting on the fence .

Phrase Finder defines it as: sit on the fence ( Figurative ) not to take sides in a dispute; not to make a clear choice between two possibilities; to delay making a decision when you have to choose between two sides in an argument or a competition.

( Origin: the image of someone straddling a fence, representing indecision. )

You can read a few examples usages at this website .

Sometimes the expression is used negatively, though.

Wikipedia mentions: "Sitting on the fence" is a common idiom used in English to describe one's neutrality, hesitance to choose between two sides in an argument or a competition, or inability to decide due to lack of courage.

This is done either in order to remain on good terms with both sides, or due to apathy to the situation and not wanting to choose a position they don't actually agree with.

Another word you could use instead is undecided , or torn : Which laptop are you going to get?

I don't know

- I'm torn .

Collins defines this word as: torn ( adj. )

divided or undecided, as in preference ⇒

he was torn between staying and leaving The word torn implies a reluctance to choose because there are aspects of both possibilities that are equally appealing (or unappealing).

I believe the most accurate word to describe that situation would be ambivalent .

You would be ambivalent .

Or, you would be experiencing or feeling ambivalence .

From a quick Google search, the top definition gives: having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.

example: "some loved her, some hated her, few were ambivalent about her" You might like some of these synonyms as well, however my opinion is that ambivalent is the superior choice.

Synonyms: equivocal, uncertain, unsure, doubtful, indecisive, inconclusive,irresolute, of two minds, undecided, torn, in a quandary,on the fence, hesitating, wavering, vacillating, equivocating,blowing/running hot and cold;

As an aside, 'Ambivalent' is one of my favorite words and I find that I use it often.

I hope this helps.

Similar to "toss up" is the expression "it's a coin flip ."

(This is the expression from which "toss up" is derived.)

"borderline" or "bordering on" seems the right sense for me, or as a phrase "a borderline case".

"My

laptop is generally OK, but for some uses it is borderline" or "...it is bordering on being too heavy / slow / ..."

Verge.

A single word replacement for the word "edge," when used to describe the emotional state or decisional position is used in the pseudo-prepositional phrase, "on the verge."

teetering teeter ˈtiːtə/Submit verb gerund or present participle: teetering move or balance unsteadily; sway back and forth. "

she teetered after him in her high-heeled sandals" synonyms: totter, walk unsteadily, wobble, toddle; More

"Bleeding edge" technology is "leading edge" technology that hasn't been "worn in" yet.

The "edge" is so "sharp" that it is likely to figuratively "cut" both its owner and the problems it is meant to solve.

Most people avoid purchasing "bleeding edge" technology, because: it tends to be expensive it often has serious problems it is often hard to make or get it is often hard to get repaired

it often becomes obsolete when a different, easier or cheaper or safer technology is adopted instead.

Question: Let's say I have something like a laptop or a mobile phone which has got comparable positive features and negative features and it is very difficult for me to decide whether it is overall good or bad.  Is there any word describing this thing?

What is the word for describing a thing right at the edge?

"It's a toss up", or "It's a coin flip" can be used. "Teetering" is another word. More formally, one could use "The choices are comparable". "It's six of one, half a dozen of the other" or "It's a wash" mean there is no real difference. Other suggestions include  "Ambivalent" and "sitting on the fence".

Toss up/coin flip and teetering are possible options. As is sitting on the fence, it's six of one, ambivalent.

Sitting on the fence, ambivalent and it's six of one are possible expressions.


I believe "break" is used metaphorically in "broken heart" and "broken man", and these metaphors have long since become fixed in language.

We're used to hearing them so much we don't even think of them as metaphors.

So why not "broken feelings"?

I believe it's simply a historical accident .

It's plausible to me that the collocation "broken feelings" could have become just as common as "a broken heart", even though it never did.

In other words, I don't believe there is any real analysis to make of it.

I could be wrong, of course.

But it's hard to say--we can't re-run history and see what different words and collocations we end up with, so it's not the sort of thing we can experiment with and determine empirically.

It's just a matter of what makes sense

--and

what makes sense to me is that it's a simple accident.

I do not recall ever hearing a fluent English speaker say "broke his feelings".

It is a common idiom to say that someone "broke his/her heart".

Typically this is said if a wife or girlfriend or husband or boyfriend terminates a relationship.

It is also commonly said if someone close to a person disappoints him in some extreme way, like "When he learned that his son had become a thief and a killer, it broke his heart."

It is also common to say that someone "hurt his feelings".

This is used for a disappointment or offense on a much smaller scale than "broke his heart".

Like, "When she didn't show up for their first date, it hurt his feelings."

"When he learned that his son had failed a history test, it hurt his feelings."

I don't know any logical reason why we say "broke his heart" but not "hurt his heart", and "hurt his feelings" but not "broke his feelings".

But that's the nature of idioms.

Some phrases just come to be commonly accepted, and others ... don't.

Regarding 25 million hits for "break * feelings": I checked out the first two pages and didn't see any that were "break his feelings" or "break her feelings".

Rather, there were many other words in between, like "When she broke up with him, it hurt his feelings".

Finding such a high number for that pair of words doesn't surprise me at all: People routinely talk their feelings when someone breaks up with them.

From Google Books: hurt my feelings 370,000 hits broke my heart

122,000 hits broke his spirit 65,300 hits broke my feelings 1 hit

That single instance is actually the reported speech of a child, in a book with the equally "ungrammatical" title Nice on My Feelings (there are no relevant instances of broke his feelings ).

So one justification for Aarts saying "this sentence is abnormal" is simply the fact that people don't say it .

As regards the "selectional restrictions" justification, I would put it like this:

Your (real or metaphorical) heart is something that can be seen as whole and functional, so it can be "broken".

Equally, with your spirit , it's a reference to your vivacity/determination - which can also be "broken", so it doesn't function properly any more.

But feelings are always there (in fact you'd probably have more of them if someone broke your heart); they're not sufficiently organised or functional to be described as "broken", no matter what happens to them.

Although "broke his feelings" is just as logical than "hurt his feelings" or "broke his heart"

it is simply non-idiomatic.

Also, an interesting aspect in "

My colleague broke his feelings" is that HE did it to HIMSELF.

If the correct form is eg "break one's heart", I still can't break it to myself, but something must break it to me.

Similarly, I suppose, we can't say "I broke my spirit" but have to say that "something broke my spirit" etc.

Am I right?

Question: My colleague  broke his feelings . ( English Syntax and Argumentation ,  Bas Aarts)   Aarts says this sentence is abnormal, because of the selectional restrictions: ‘feelings’ is abstract and not proper for the object of ‘broke.’ I can understand what he is saying. But is the case so strange enough to be selected by Aarts? We can say ‘The death of his wife broke him completely.’ Then why can’t we say like the example?

Is it proper to use "broke" in "Broke his feelings"?

I do not recall ever hearing a fluent English speaker say "broke his feelings".  In 25 million hits for "break * feelings", there were no entries for "break his feelings" or "break her feelings" - it is simply non-idiomatic.

This is non-idiomatic and is not used despite web hits.


There's no infallible way of divining someone's gender from their name.

I once knew a woman named "Robert", not "Roberta".

Evelyn Waugh, a British novelist, was a man.

Bela Lugosi was a male actor.

I'm sure others can come up with far more names like this than I can.

There are many "unisex" or "androgynous" names shared by males and females alike in the Western world.

Same goes for Chinese and even Japanese names.

It's often possible to determine gender from a person's given name, but not always.

Short answer:

you can't.

There is no reliable rule that will cover all the various languages and exceptions and parents who name their daughter Maxwell and their son Andrea.

Longer answer:

The bad news is, the -a vs. -o ending rule has so many exceptions that it's useless.

Bella is female, but Bela (well, technically Béla ) is male; Andrea is male in Italy but female elsewhere; Luca is male in Serbia but female in Hungary; Consuelo is female; etc.

The good news is, there are some tools you can use.

Some European countries publish lists of names that can be registered on birth certificates.

Most of those lists are gender-specific, as in parents are not allowed to choose a masculine name for their daughter or vice-versa.

Thus, if you know what country a person is from, you can look up their lists of registerable names and figure out the person's gender.

An image search can sometimes be useful: plug in the given name and check if the pictures that come up are mostly men or mostly women.

There are baby-name sites (or books) and gender-guesser websites that will give a gender for given names.

Make sure to check a couple of different sites, though, because some of them can be very wrong.

However, the bottom line is that even after all your best efforts and web searches, you simply will not be 100% correct, because Parents Are Crazy.

And they're increasingly getting crazier - in the US, even traditional masculine mainstays like Charlie are starting to skew female.

So the only foolproof method to determine a person's gender is to ask .

If the name begins with "Mr" it's a male, if it begins with "Ms", "Mrs" or "Miss"

it's a female.

It's tricky.

In my opinion, we can't predict gender based on names alone, as the same names can be named for both genders at times.

There are so many names that can be named for both genders.

On many occasions, it's not possible to determine gender based on name alone.

In addition to the answers already posted, there is an extra spanner in the works.

Even if names were unambiguously male or female, and had an easy, infallible way to determine which was which, there is still ambiguity.

If their name is the name they were given when they were born, it would only represent the gender that a person seemed to be at the time they were named.

With gender being the mental identity of a person, it doesn't have to match their physical sex.

Therefore, a person who identifies as female could have a name like "Bruce".

Throw in the possibility of people legally changing their name and/or physical sex, and there is really no way it can be relied on for identifying the physical sex of a person.

This must be true for any language; not just English.

There are many exceptions.

Many names are used by both genders.

Here is a list of male names and a list of female names .

The -o and -a rule is generally accurate.

From these lists you can see there are few, if any, male names ending in -a, while there are quite a few ending in o, and vice versa for the women.

This will not always be the case.

Question: A Japanese person was asking how to tell the gender of someone based on their name. Someone else claimed that if it ends in "a", it's usually female, and if it ends in "o", it's usually male. How reliable is this rule? I suspect it's only true of names derived from Italian, but I could be wrong.  Assume that the names are of people of European descent in western countries such as America, Britain or Australia.

Determining someone's gender from their name

There's no infallible way of divining someone's gender from their name, as there are so many "unisex" names that can be named for both genders.   It's  often  possible to determine  gender from a person's given name, but not always, so the only foolproof method to determine a person's gender is to  ask . Some European countries publish lists of names that can be registered on birth certificates. Most of those lists are gender-specific, and parents are not allowed to choose a masculine name for their daughter or vice-versa.

You can sometimes determine gender from a name, some names are unisex and certain countries have gender-specific lists of names that can be registered. You should just ask.

You should ask as you cannot predict gender from the name alone.


Probably this is the first question on this particular issue here on ELL, but it's been asked many times before on ELU.

That link is to the one kept open while duplicates are closed (about once a month!).

As the answers there will show, there isn't any "natural" way to succinctly phrase such a question in English.

Informally, people sometimes ask things like

"Obama is the how-many'th president of the US?"

"This question is the what'th on the subject?".

but they're not at all standard.

The best I can think of that remains strictly "grammatical" is... "

What is the ordinality of Obama among US presidents?

but I don't recommend learners bothering with that either, since not all native speakers would even understand you.

Although it's not really "correct", most people would probably just ask something like... "What number president is Obama?"

I don't particularly like the way this sentence sounds, but I think it's the clearest way to ask your question without being over-elaborate: What number president was Taft?

So I suggest you say that.

But since I don't really like the sound of it, I'll discuss a few other ways to say the same thing: I like this sentence much better, but it's pretty ambiguous: Which president was Taft? . . .

so we could probably clarify it a bit.

In informal speech, I might say the following: Which president was Taft, like the thirtieth?

Thirty-first?

Less informally: Which president was Taft?

For example, was he the thirtieth president?

Since I gave examples of answers, it's clear what I meant.

You can, of course, spell out exactly what you mean.

I avoided doing so because it's difficult to do so concisely .

We can write the following sentence, which is precise and acceptable: In the chronological sequence of Presidents of the United States, which position did

Taft occupy? . . .

but it sounds unwieldy to me.

You have your answer in the question itself!

Which position is Obama at on the list of American Presidents?

And the answer is...

He's 44th on the list of American Presidents.

A simple way to ask this kind of question and a way that many speakers do opt for, is with "How many".

How many American presidents (did we have|were there|came) before Obama?

-- He's the 44th president.

How many people were ahead of you in the customer service phone queue?

--I'm third in line.

How many times has he been absent?

--This is his fourth absence.

If you need more precision than that, then you're probably writing or speaking in a specialized domain where unwieldiness plays second-fiddle to precision: In which offset of the array was the string value found?

What is the item's position in the job queue?

If I understand your question correctly, you mean position as in 9th, 10th, 11th etc.

If so you could say:

Was he the 10th president of the United States?

I would use this: At what number does Obama stand in the sequence of American Presidents?

Another option though not so good:

What is Obama's serial number among the American Presidents?

Question: How to ask the position(?) of a president (like 10th) of a country, correctly?

Asking the position of a person in a sequence

A simple way to ask this kind of question and a way that many speakers do opt for, is with "How many". Or "Was he the 10th president of the United States?" A more natural, but more ambiguos question would be "Which president was Taft?" Although it's not really correct, most people would probably just ask something like  "What number president is Obama?"

Which, many, position and ordinality are options. You can also ask what number.


The user can determine their name.

According to an irreversible trend, use the universal their , avoiding the exclusive his and the clumsy his/her .

The Cambridge Guide to English Usage says: " their avoids gratuitous sexism and gives the statement broadest reference."

Just supplementing @Carlo_R.'s reply:

The following is from New Oxford American Dictionary

The word they (with its counterparts them, their, and themselves) as a singular pronoun to refer to a person of unspecified sex has been used since at least the 16th century.

In the late 20th century, as the traditional use of he to refer to a person of either sex came under scrutiny on the grounds of sexism, this use of they has become more common.

The use of they instead of "he or she" is common in spoken English and increasingly so in written English , although still deplored by some people.

He was once acceptable when you wanted to speak of a person whose sex was not known, or stated.

Now, it is considered old-fashioned, and other alternatives have been used.

He

/she Use he/

she

every time you are referring to a person for which the sex is not relevant.

singular

their Use a sentence like the following: "The user can determine their name.

Use the plural instead of the singular

In your case, it would mean to use a sentence like the following: "

The users can determine their names."

Somebody still consider the singular their not acceptable, and they rather prefer using the plural, as in the last example.

The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary has the following notes about this topic: He used to be considered to cover both men and women: "Everyone needs to feel he is loved.

" This is not now acceptable.

Instead, after everybody , everyone , anybody , anyone , somebody , someone , etc.

one of the plural pronouns they , them , and their is often used:

Does everybody know what they want?

Somebody's left their coat here.

I hope nobody's forgotten to bring their passport with them.

Some people prefer to use he or she , his or her , or him or her in speech and writing: "Everyone knows what's best for him or herself."

He/she or (s)he can also be used in writing: "If in doubt, ask your doctor.

He/she can give you more information."

(You may find that some writers just use she .)

These uses can seem awkward when they are used a lot.

It is better to try to change the sentence, using a plural noun.

Instead of saying "A baby cries when he or she is tired" you can say "Babies cry when they are tired."

I am guessing his name refers to a user name (on a computer system), right?

Anyway you can turn the statement around (passive construction):

The ( user ) name can be determined/specified by the user.

That avoids using possessive pronouns.

"His/her" is not grammatically correct.

It is a shorthand which used in a kind of abbreviated dialect of English that is found in instruction manuals and such.

A conjunction is required: his or her.

The user can determine his or her name.

Traditionally, male examples are used in English.

The example person is a "he" and that is that.

In English, the human race is traditionally called "mankind", a person fallen off a ship is "man overboard", tending to your job is "manning your post" and so on.

However, that kind of speaking and writing tends to make women feel excluded.

So this is why we use he or she for some unspecified person, or they .

But here is another strategy you can use in writing.

Simply use masculine pronouns in some examples, and feminine ones in others.

In some sections of the document, make the user female and use she and her (consistently: do not change the user from being a he in one sentence to a she in a related sentence): The user can determine her name.

Then in some other sections, make the user he .

This way you can avoid creating a sense that women are included, while avoiding repetitions of his or her , and without resorting to they and their .

Moreover, compared to using they , you create a more active sense that women are included.

Although using plural third person pronouns like they and their to refer to a single person is widespread and acceptable, it does not sound quite as good as using as singular pronoun for one person.

At least, subjectively speaking, not to everyone.

Question: Should I use  his  or  his/her  in the following sentence?   The user can determine  his  name.

"His/her" or just "his"?

The word they (with its counterparts them, their, and themselves) as a  singular pronoun to refer to a person of unspecified sex has been used  since at least the 16th century. Use the plural instead of the singular and the users can determine their names.  The Cambridge Guide to English Usage  says: " their  avoids gratuitous sexism and gives the statement broadest reference." The use of they instead of  "he or she"  is common in  spoken English  and increasingly so in  written English.

He/she' can be used but is deplored due to gratuitous sexism. Use 'they/their'.


One definition of zero is 2

the absence of a measurable quantity

However, this is a noun.

As an adjective , zero means not any or no Based on this definition, it is correct to use it to describe a mass noun to say there is none of it.

I've noticed that using "zero" instead of "no" is usually used to emphasize the lack of whatever it's describing.

OED definitions include... Nought or nothing reckoned as a number denoted by the figure 0

That is of the amount expressed by zero, i.e. none at all; in Math.

also transf.

applied to a value of a function corresponding to the value 0 of the variable(s).

Hence ( colloq. )

more widely as adj.

in the sense ‘ no, not any ’.

[emphasis mine].

That's to say, by traditional definitions and usage

, OP is correct in saying that zero is a number - so it shouldn't be used as a quantifier , in contexts where you wouldn't use any other number.

But in fact it's commonly used that way colloquially (usually only in spoken informal contexts).

Having said that, there are restrictions on its use... ?

It's zero good hoping people will accept this as a reasonable utterance, even in casual speech.

Actually, I suppose it's possible some native speakers (certainly not me!

will accept that contrived example.

But I'm betting the vast majority wouldn't, so my advice to learners would be to avoid the form completely and always use no instead.

You'll never be wrong that way.

It's a rhetorical flourish.

The person who said zero courage is "bending the rules" of ordinary usage.

To a native speaker, saying zero as a synonym for no is a reasonable variation from normal usage.

The ordinary phrasing is no courage ; that would have drawn no attention to itself.

Saying zero courage is emphatic: it's like saying "There was not even a little bit of courage in this verdict.

There was no courage at all. "

While zero courage in this context doesn't sound ungrammatical or sloppy to most native speakers, there are very similar phrases that no native speaker would say because they break rather than bend ordinary usage.

For example, nobody would say two courage .

That would be incomprehensible.

See FumbleFingers' answer for another good example of going too far.

You shouldn't take the example as evidence contradicting the principle that mass nouns cannot be enumerated.

It's evidence that zero can sometimes be stretched into an intensified version of no .

There is no precise general rule for when you can and can't do this kind of thing.

You just have to get a sense of how far you can bend the language without breaking it.

That can only come with (long) experience.

One of the possible meanings of zero is "the lowest possible amount or level; nothing at all"; one of the example phrases shown by the OALD is "zero inflation.

" The example is similar to yours, since both courage and inflation are uncountable.

Some nouns like "courage" are quantifiable but not really measurable; one could describe Fred as having "more" courage than Joe, but there's no standard unit of courage that would make it possible to say that e.g. Fred has 2.7 more couragions than Joe.

The lack of defined units, however, doesn't affect "zero" because zero doesn't require units .

If something is has a length of zero inches, zero centimeters, and zero angstroms, or zero miles, it has zero length; the units don't matter.

If something has a mass of zero ounces, zero milligrams, or zero tons, it has zero mass; again, the units don't matter.

That principle can be extended to things like "courage": it's not possible to specify any particular non-zero quantity of courage because that would require defining units, but since "zero" doesn't require units, it is possible to have zero courage.

Question: “There was  zero courage  in this verdict,” he said. ”I think this goes to the jury not wanting to make a difficult decision."   I learned that mass nouns cannot be enumerated.   Yes, I know that  zero courage  can be replaced with  no courage , but, since  zero  is a number, I wonder whether  zero courage  is ungrammatical or only sloppy style.

Can "zero" be used to describe uncountable nouns?

As an adjective , zero means the lowest possible amount or level, or nothing at all.  Based on this definition, it is correct to use it to describe a mass noun to say there is none of it.  Using "zero" instead of "no" is usually used to emphasize the lack of whatever it's describing.

Zero is the lowest possible amount and can emphasise a lack. Using it bends the rules of ordinary usage and is synonymous with 'no'.

Using it bends the rules of normal usage and is synonymous with 'no'.


That internal area is called a "compartment".

(If it had a container that you could slide out to place your things inside more readily, that would be a "drawer".)

(A "hole" is too generic of a term, and would not be associated with the desk; a "slot" would be a long, narrow hole that allows you to insert, for example, an envelope into an otherwise closed compartment.

This desk has a (closed) drawer with a slot.)

I would use one of the following terms: • pigeonhole , “A nook in a desk for holding papers” • recess , “An inset, hole, space or opening” • cubbyhole , “A small compartment; a pigeonhole” • desk pocket , with pocket used in the sense of a receptacle, indention, or cavity

ell.stackexchange.com/users/146/James Waldby - jwpat7

The hole in that desk can be called a slot.

See this definiton .

One could call the "compartment" a cubby , a cubbyhole , a pigeonhole (although a pigeonhole is usually smaller), or a recess , but the simplest, most common English word might be shelf .

Apart from anything else that does not look practical.

What would you put in there?

Paper?

Exercise books?

I would not describe that space as being a slot.

A slot is a snug, tight hole, usually horizontal, and just enough space toslide something in.

A coin for example.

A slot machine, for exampleis another name for a fruit machine.

In that case the coin slot isusually vertical.

I wouldn't call it a hole.

A hole tends to be round, not always, but if you were to ask someone to drawa hole in the wall it would be round shaped.

Personally I would call it an "open drawer" or a "paper drawer" or"an open unit" or a "paper storage nook".

Google provided thispossibility: Open paper storage drawer

The actual piece of furniture is called "a four drawer open paper storage".

But admittedly it is a bit of a mouthful.

It would take you longer to say to a friend: " Please put the book into the open paper storage drawer." than to put the actual book away yourself.

"Hole" then would be fine, life's too short.

Question: This question has been created to split two questions previously asked  here    It is a "hole" in a desk. What can I call this? Can I say "Put your books into the hole"?

What is the “hole” in this desk called?

A hole in a desk can be called a slot, a compartment, a cubby, a pigeonhole, a paper drawer, a nook, or a desk pocket.

You could call it a slot, cubby, an open drawer, compartment, pigeonhole or nook.

You could call it a cubby, an open drawer, compartment, pigeonhole or nook.


You could say the buses are due every hour on the hour from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m.

This is a set phrase, so you should memorize it as a single vocabulary item.

That said, you can break it into two pieces to understand it better: every hour means "each hour"; on the hour means "at the beginning of the hour".

In other words, this refers to a time ending with o'clock or :00 .

When you put these two together, you get a phrase meaning "at the beginning of each hour".

snailboat's answer is very good, but if you are specifically looking for a specific single-word term to describe the "every hour on the hour" pattern, the word you want is hourly .

e.g., Buses arrive hourly from 5am to 11pm.

Let's focus on the context of the example.

Try

"Buses go on the hour between 5am and 11pm."

Why did I pick "go"?

Because that's when it leaves .

"Go" is perfect because every non-native speaker will understand it (airport context), and it has a convenient and accurate double meaning.

"Arrive" could be confusing because someone might think the bus arrives at the destination at that time.

About other answers: Buses aren't normally "due", in conversation or formal texts.

They "run", "arrive" or just "come" (or, in England, should come!

and they often "go" or "leave".

I believe various spoken and written language usage corpii will back me up here.

As an English native, and teacher, I've never heard "at the top of every hour".

"every full hour" is confusing, "hourly" isn't specific enough, we're stuck with "on the hour" even if it's not so intuitive.

My second pick was "each hour" because it suggests more than "once per hour", but there's something unnatural about it...

I think there is not a single-word term which describes the succession of exact time like 1, 2, 3 o'clock, etc.

However, we do have a couple of phrases of common knowledge in this context, which are as follows: On the hour .

The phrase is indicative of both every hour and exact time as mentioned above.

So when we say "trains leave for London on the hour", it specifies not only every hour but also the exactness of time; that is 1, 2, 3 o'clock, etc.

Every hour on the hour is also correct.

Even if we drop every hour , it will give the same required sense.

In fact, the words "every hour" are emphatic here.

At the top of the hour .

I don't think this phrase fits in this context.

Sometimes,we hear on TV that we'll have a news update at the top of the hour.

What does it mean?

It means that we'll have a news update at the start of the next hour of time.

It does not mean every next hour.

In addition, this phrase is not much in use.

I would say "buses arrive every top of the hour".

I would use every full hour .

There are some hits in the net: SE:

JavaScript:

How to do something every full hour?

Linguee

with a lot of examples.

I'm no native speaker, it may be a German 'false friend'.

It would be fine if somebody could confirm the term is right.

Question: I was talking to my friend the other day about the airport bus timings, I was supposed to say    Buses are due at  6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00  etc. (pattern like this the whole day between say 5 am to 11 pm)   Is there any specific term or way to describe the pattern?

Is there a specific term to describe time 6:00, 7:00, 8:00 etc

"Every hour on the hour", "hourly" or "every top of the hour".

Every hour on the hour works well. You can also use hourly and at the top of the hour.

Every hour on the hour works well.
Hourly and top of the hour are options.


I suggest the phrasal verb storm off , which encompasses the idea of leaving with anger.

I find the use of lope to be at odds with the need for anger in the motion, since a lope is "a long, easy stride; a leisurely canter"; ease and leisureliness are not compatible with anger.

As StoneyB says, I don't think you can get everything all into one word or even one phrasal verb; you will need additional description for the part where others are treated disrespectfully.

Other options for that portion could be elbowing people aside , barreling through the crowd , or even heedless of the people in his way .

Stomp

I think you'll find 'stomp' perfect for use in this context.

None of these words will fully serve your purpose.

Stride includes the notion of long steps .

Swagger and strut both include the notion of pride, but this is more an exaggerated regard for oneself than any direct disrespect for another.

None of these words includes the notion of anger.

I doubt that any one English verb will convey all these notions.

You will have to pick a verb which conveys the most important one, and add modifiers which convey the others.

For instance: He paced angrily forward; his humiliated followers could only scurry behind, unable to keep up with him.

He raged up and down in long strides, shouldering aside anyone who stood in his path.

He sneered and loped off in evident anger.

One could plough through a crowd, angrily or not.

One might barge past some onlookers - to barge implies rudeness or indifference.

see also "he barged into the room, uninvited" I could also bull my way through the crowd

My ex-wife often stormed away in her anger at me and I would storm off in a fit of fury.

If you do so loudly, you might be said to thunder through or thunder past the startled onlookers.

A sense of *Charged angrily" would work too: In a fury, he charged through the crowd.

Hope it helps.

I don't know of a single word in my American dialect that quite captures it.

But He stormed off works pretty well if your person is leaving a room, or a group of people in a huff.

It's frequently used in that context.

"Stride" suggests a person walking quickly, but doesn't imply anger.

A silly woman leaving a situation in anger over something trivial, who wants everyone to see her leaving angry, can "flounce" away.

But dignified people don't flounce, and men don't either.

I think that stalked is the perfect word….i.e. stalked across the room

Question: Is there a single word(verb) to describe the action "to walk angrily with long steps without giving respect other people"?  I found these three words which seem to be a close match for what I'm looking for: swagger, strut and stride. But I'm not sure which one of these I should use, or is there another other word that's better?

Word meaning "to walk angrily with long steps without giving respect other people"

"Stalked", "paced", "stormed off" or "stomped" convey the intended meaning.

Stride, stalk and stomp work. You can also use phrasal verbs such as storm off.

Phrasal verbs such as storm off can work.


Sure, in the air can mean to hover – if you're talking about a helicopter, a hummingbird, or a biplane.

But consider this more metaphorical usage, listed in NOAD: in the air – noticeable all around; becoming prevalent : I smell violence in the air .

I suppose you could use hover, if you wanted to, but it wouldn't be used to replace in the air .

Instead, you might say: A sense of mystery hovered in the air.

I think that's an improvement over the original, simply because hovered is a more interesting verb than was .

There are plenty of other ways to say it, though, too.

Besides Fumble's hung in the air suggestion, there's also:

A sense of mystery clouded the air.

A sense of mystery darkened the air.

Because these are transitive verbs (and not intransitive, like hovered ), we eliminate the preposition in .

Hover and be in the air are only distantly synonymous, and only within a narrow range of reference.

Hover means to remain stationary over a particular place

Police helicopters hovered above the square.

OR to maintain a position over a particular moving object Her mother hovered over her like a suspicious vulture.

It often implies that the subject is poised to drop or pounce on the place or object.

Be in the air means to be present or sensible wherever one goes .

It usually implies that the subject is sensible to and has an effect on everyone; often it means specifically that the subject is a universal topic of discussion.

Spring is in the air.

Rumours of war were in the air.

In your case: ✲ It hovered a sense of mystery is unidiomatic.

A sense of mystery hovered adds senses of threat and locational specificity which are not present in the original, and removes, or at least attenuates, the sense of great extension and effect.

You can use hover ; but it won't mean the same thing.

It's definitely not appropriate to rephrase using hovers .

Unless you're a highly creative writer, but that has no relevance here on ELL.

A credible alternative to the verb to be when referencing a sense of mystery might be...

A sense of mystery hung in the air

I'm not sure it makes sense to try and explain why a sense of mystery wouldn't normally "hover".

They're all metaphorical references anyway; some are used quite often, others rarely or never.

Who can say why a sense of mystery is far more likely to pervade rather than permeate ?

(it never penetrates or saturates ).

"In the air" here is an idiom.

The "sense of mystery" is not literally a physical object that is floating above the floor.

In general, you cannot substitute words that by a dictionary definition are synonymous for an idiom.

That makes it no longer an idiom, so people think you mean the words literally.

There are many jokes about someone trying to learn the language who tries to substitute such synonyms and leaves native speakers confused about what he means.

That's just not how the language works.

As I write this, I'm thinking of all sorts of idioms that would lose all meaning if reworded.

Like: "I don't know the answer off the top of my head.

" I don't have that information readily available.

But, "I don't know the answer falling from my hair.

Not a clue what that means.

"Sally is a dog.

" Sally is ugly. "Sally is a canine.

She is literally the four-legged animal.

"Differential equations are over my head.

The subject is too difficult for me to understand.

"Differential equations are upstairs.

" The class meets on the second floor.

"We're going to go to the ball game and have a blast!

" We will have a good time.

"We're going to go to the ball game and create an explosion!

" We are planning a terrorist attack at a public event.

Etc.

One could play this game forever.

float ?

There was a sense of mystery floating in the air.

or use "around" instead of " in the air" There was a sense of mystery floating around.

Question: There was a sense of mystery in the air.   Since "to be in the air", at least according to the dictionary I use ("i Garzantini"), can be translated using the verb "to hover", in order to make the above sentence, as to say, "more erudite", is it appropriate to rephrase it this way "It hovered a sense of mystery"? Or, maybe, "to hover" cannot be used in reference to abstract concepts?

Rephrasing "to be in the air"

"Hover" is not appropriate in this context. "In the air" here is an idiom. Use "around" instead of " in the air", as in:   "There was a sense of mystery floating around".

Hover is unidiomatic, in the air is idiomatic.

In the air is an idiom.
Hover is unidiomatic.


Lets take an example here: You login to your Facebook account and post a comment.

How Facebook updates this comment to your Facebook wall and your friends wall & also the time delay will determine the update mode.(although there are other parameters also).

Real Time- Comment is updated online and delay is less than 2 seconds.

Near Real Time- A delay of 2~10 seconds is expected, however, exact definition depends on SLA between the involved parties.

Facebook works on near real time mode.

3. Offline Mode or Batch Processing-

The data is updated via files to the database, exact definition depends on SLA between the involved parties.

In general time delay is in hours (in every ~6 to 12 hrs).

Offline or batch processing is answer to your question.

Deferred could definitely be used to denote what is not real-time in appropriate contexts.

For ex: Deferred is already used by Oracle as a part of a term Deferred Processing which is a feature that allows long-running tasks to be handled by background engines instead of in real time.

More here .

If it's not real-time , it's non-real-time .

Other terms may be useful to describe something which is non-real-time, but that is nonetheless the correct term.

In computer science, real-time is used to describe a characteristic of reactive systems, those have a constraint on the delay between the event and the response to the event.

(It is often subdivided in hard --- when missing any deadline is a failure --- firm --- when missing some deadline is allowed at the cost of reducing the quality and missed responses are of no utility --- and soft --- when having a late response is better than having none).

I know of no word describing non-real-time systems in this sense.

Batch or offline systems are just systems which are working alone, as opposed to online systems which interact either with the world (the reactive systems ) or users (the interactive systems ).

As usual, definitions tend to vary a little depending on authors and their purpose (especially the division between interactive systems and soft real-time one is more one of intend, context and tradition than anything else).

Notes: Real-time is also used informally to describe interactive systems for which the interaction is quick enough that it doesn't suffer from the response time.

Non-real-time systems in this sense are just called slow .

Online/offline is also used to describes systems needing or not needing a network connection.

If you are looking at "age" and "operability" of business data, you might consider "historical" vs. "real-time" data.

These aren't exact antonyms, but I think they would work in certain contexts.

My use case is: " realtime games vs ___ games ".

You could emphasize the difference in length of time with: extended, ongoing, or long-term .

You could emphasize the broken quality of time with: discontinuous, periodic, fragmented, or intermittent .

Question: In computer science there is the term  real-time . Is there any word to say something is not real time?  Non-real time  doesn't sound good to me.

What is the opposite of real-time?

Offline or batch processing is the opposite of real-time processing. Deferred could denote non-real-time. One might use  "historical" vs. "real-time" data, or time could be considered to be discontinuous, periodic, fragmented, extended, ongoing or intermittent.

Real-time and non-real-time are helpful distinctions. You can emphasise the difference with extended, discontinuous, deferred, offline or batch processing.


I'd say the phrase ' one-on-one meeting ' sounds much more natural.

The term ' one-to-one ' is more often used in the with any of the following: one-to-one relationship one-to-one function one-to-one mapping

one-on-one is used to talk about meetings between two people.

When there is a discussion we can call it a one-on-one discussion ; as an alternative for a face to face confrontation and in interviews (quite often political ones on TV).

one to one (with or without hyphens) is an expression often used in teaching.

When students are paired in class; and in teaching one to one , i.e. a teacher with a private student (a client) or an individual student as opposed to a class.

It is used in the campaign: "one to one computing" which promotes a computer for every student and teacher.

In BrEng one-to-one (with hyphens) is used in the following: one-to-one discussion ; one-to-one talk ; and one-to-one interview as in " Interviews will be on a one-to-one basis. "

Finally, one-to-one in Mathematics: "Maths characterized by or involving the pairing of each member of one set with only one member of another set, without remainder."

One-to-one is used to describe transfer and mapping.

In mathematics, a one-to-one function is a function where every element in the range corresponds to one element in the domain.

One-on-one is used to describe meetings between two individuals, as per your question.

It's more appropriate to say One on One.

One to One sounds more like a technical term to denote mapping between two elements.

Both could be used interchangeably.

However,'One-to-One' indicates a more formal tête-à-tête whereas 'One-on-One' refers to a confrontational situation between two people.

A 'One-to-One' meeting definitely sounds more appropriate.

One on one would be the appropriate use here.

When you are having a one on one meeting or discussion, typically it is a informal conversation or a touch base if you will.

One to one would signify a relationship between two entities.

Question: I have been confused about the difference between " one  to  one " and " one  on  one ".  Which one is more appropriate of the following?   We will have  one  to  one  meeting?  We will have  one  on  one  meeting?

Difference between 'One to One' and 'One on One'

Some people claim that 'One-to-One' indicates a more formal tête-à-tête whereas 'One-on-One' may imply a confrontational situation between two people. Conversely, others say that one-on-one  is used to describe meetings between two individuals. Therefore, both can be used. one to one  (with or without hyphens) is an expression often used in teaching.

One-to-one is more technical and is indicative of a relationship. It is also used in mathematics. One-on-one is more natural for meetings.


I'm not sure if it's overly simple for your needs

but I would always say: ...can be found from page x onwards

Your first example is perfectly fine because "pages" isn't necessary.

You've already stated that you're referring to pages when you say, "found on page x".

I assume that you want to spell out this information particularly instead of using the ff.

notation: "... can be found on page xff.

" which means the same thing. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ff .

Not “page 42 and the following”.

The adjective following calls for a noun.

It looks like you're using “the following” to mean “what follows the current point in the text” or “something that follows” or “the next few lines”.

“Page 42 and the following pages” sounds correct.

This could be shortened to “page 42 and following pages” (since you aren't specifying the exact number of following pages, it's some following pages, so the null article works), or perhaps even to “page 42 and following” (without the

, it doesn't look like a noun is missing any more).

In practice, you would normally not spell this out, but use the abbreviation ff.

The word page becomes plural since it now designates not just to the first page but to the whole sequence.

(…) can be found on pages 42ff."

ell.stackexchange.com/users/233/Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

I'd say one of the following: • ... can be found on page x and following • ... can be found on page x

et seq.

• ... can be found on or after page x

ell.stackexchange.com/users/146/James Waldby - jwpat7

Even in an academic paper, I think you can avoid esoteric notation like ff or et seq .

(Or perhaps especially in an academic paper.

Contrary to popular opinion, you don't win points for making a paper hard to read.)

You can express this simply, and I would do so by writing "starting on": [...]

can be found starting on page 153.

There are some good alternatives in the other answers.

Just make sure that however you choose to express yourself, it's clear to your intended audience.

Your second example is better than your first example, IMO.

You could say "

[...] can be found on page x and on. which would mean the same thing (although "and on" could possibly be taken to mean "until the end of the book").

Saying "after page x" is confusing.

It probably would not include page x, but it is ambiguous enough that someone would probably have to ask for clarification.

Question: I want to refer to a certain page and the pages after that, but without giving the end as a specified number.  Can I use these phrases?   [...] can be found on page x and the following.    [...] can be found on page x and the following pages.    [...] can be found after page x?   I personally don't like the second version. Is the first version correct? Can I use it?

How to say "on page x and the following pages"?

Suggestions include "can be found  starting on  page 153"; “Page 42 and the following pages”; "can be found from page x onwards"; or "can be found on or after page x ".

You can say can be found starting on/on or after page x. Also, page x and following/onwards is appropriate.

Page x and following/onwards is appropriate.


Use of the word “google” to mean “perform an Internet-based search (for)” is an example of genericization .

Wikipedia has a list of terms that have entered the language this way .

Some may surprise you.

Wikipedia also has a helpful page on the topic , which includes commentary on the phenomenon itself.

If you're looking for a more general term that covers words entering the language that are not necessarily trademarks, I recommend neologism .

"How to term those words which are not by default English but added by time?"

That seems to me difficult to answer since all English words were not by default, but added in time.

You may consider, depending on context, terms such as neologism, loanword or calque.

As for Google, this is a type of trademark name that became a common word.

Other such examples are: cornflake (from Cornflakes@), tabloid, zipper, aspirin, escalator, jacuzzi, ping-pong, and one of the most-known, xerox.

As per the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, google is a transitive verb.

It is a word rather than just a usage.

Whilst a lot of the other answers to this question seem to be focusing on whether google has entered the dictionary, to me that sounds like a question for ELU.

My (ELL) take on it

is that it is a word - regardless of whether a dictionary believes it to be so - meaning to "search the web (esp.

using the Google web-search product)" because native speakers use it for that purpose .

Whether or not it is in a dictionary is somewhat besides the point.

It is well understood, routinely used and widely accepted word in everyday ordinary English.

It is certainly very informal, so I'd avoid using it in essays and graded assignments, or in formal letters and emails.

And I'd avoid using it in books and marketing material too, since Google is a trademarked term.

But yes, for all intents and purposes, google is a perfectly valid word, used and understood by native English speakers: Let me just google that for you.

I'm not sure.

I'll google it.

Of course I know that zebras aren't just stripy horses!

I googled "zebras" earlier, and it said they were entirely different species!

"Verbing" is what happens when a noun or adjective starts to be used as a verb. "Genericizing" or "genericization" is what happens when a trademark (such as "Google") starts to be used as an ordinary word (such as "googling").

Usually the trademark is capitalized, and usually the genericized word is not capitalized.

Also, most trademarks do not take prefixes or suffixes (other than using a plural suffix to talk about more than one instance of the trademarked item), but genericized words do.

"Coinage" or "coining" is what happens when someone makes up a new word (or phrase) and starts using it.

The new word or phrase is a "neologism".

"Borrowing" is what happens when a foreign language word becomes an English language word.

Question: How to term those words which are not by default English but are added over time?  Consider for example  Google . Is it an English word now? Or is it just a usage?

How does a word become an English word? Is there a word for that?

"Borrowing" is what happens when a foreign language word becomes an English language word. "Verbing" is what happens when a noun or adjective starts to be used as a verb.  "Genericizing" is what happens when a trademark (such as "Google") starts to be used as an ordinary word (such as "googling").  "Coining" is what happens when someone makes up a new word. "Neologism" is a more general term that covers words entering the language.

Verbing and borrowing are possible, also genericization, coinage, neologism, loanword or calque are options.

Genericization, coinage, neologism, loanword or calque are options.


There are a couple of difference idiomatic choices depending on what subtext you wish to convey.

Here's a selection you can choose from: If you want to describe someone with implied criticism in a single word: John is work-shy .

John is indolent .

( not particularly common)

John is a do-nothing .

( not particularly common).

John is very apathetic towards work.

Or using an idiom:

John is somewhat of a nine-to-fiver .

John does enough to get by at work.

John does the bare minimum in his job.

John isn't living up to his own potential at work.

John is just scraping by at work.

John is not pulling his weight in his job.

The following may also apply: John is very unmotivated in his work.

John has no passion for his work.

John is fairly indifferent towards his work.

John is very lazy .

On the other hand, you might want to give John's lifestyle a positive spin: John has a good work life-balance .

For what it's worth, I think slacker is, in fact, the right word for this.

You're describing someone who doesn't totally fail to show up, but puts in the minimum effort.

Putting in the minimum effort is slacking.

If you wanted to describe this in a more "politically correct" way, you might say the person is not very industrious .

A goldbrick : a person who shirks responsibility or performs duties without proper effort or care.

Originally... The term has come a long way from its roots in the nineteenth century; along the way it got progressively further and further away from gold, or indeed bricks [...]

Incompetent officers appointed from civilian life at the start of the First World War with only minimal training were likewise called gold bricks by enlisted men (in the case of second lieutenants, this was probably provoked by their rank insignia, a gold rectangle)

At some point during that War, the term was extended to refer to anybody not pulling his weight, a malingerer or loafer

He's a clock-watcher .

Only interested in when it's time to go home.

Some other words that would work:

John has a [casual, lackadaisical, negligent, disinterested, uncaring] approach to his work.

Some words that would also imply that the quality of work suffers from his approach would be slipshod, slapdash, unmeticulous, careless, and haphazard.

You can find more by consulting a thesaurus.

Here are a couple more: John is a malingerer.

John is a clockwatcher.

From Google: malingerer : one who feigns illness in order to escape duty or work clockwatcher : an employee who is overly strict or zealous about not working more than the required hours

I like "John's work is slapdash" Since this describes his work, rather than John himself, it is more subtle than some of the other examples.

What about John is a sloven or slob .

This means Schlamper in German, which is a person who fulfills his job but the outcome is of such a poor quality.

Question: Not really a 'slacker', since if I understand right thats somebody who doesn't really do anything. More like a person who works 9 to 5 (or more like 9-4 if he can get away with it) but not a minute longer. Is totally bland when fulfilling his tasks etc. Also hes not really a 'tool' I guess, since he's 'using' his employer more the other way around.(?)  Its driving me crazy that I can't find a right word ;)

What would you call a person who does a job but doesnt really care about quality of his work?

One might say that he is a clock-watcher; a nine-to-fiver; doing the bare minimum; just scraping by; not pulling his weight; very unmotivated; lazy; indolent; apathetic; disinterested or indifferent. You could also use slacker.

Clock-watcher, slob, indifferent, slacker and do-nothing are viable options.


A Cheap person is someone who doesn't like to spend money.

Cheap also means showing a lack of honesty and moral principles.

Someone who is "cheap" is a person that is reluctant to spend money.

It's a negative way to describe a person.

Some people are reluctant to spend money and can be called "cautious", that is a more positive way to describe a person.

For example, you have bills to pay so decide to cook instead of going to a restaurant.

This is positive because it's responsible to be careful with your money.

A "cheap person" is a person that is ungenerous with their money.

For example, I want a pair of $50 Nike shoes, but my mom buys me FAKE Nike shoes that cost $15.

Yes, the fake Nikes are cheaper, but their quality is poor.

Most people would prefer paying the extra money for the Nikes because they are of higher quality and will last longer, but my mother doesn't care about that.

My mother is cheap because the only thing that matters to her is to spend as little money as possible.

Someone can be rich, but be cheap.

For example, billionaire Donald Trump buying his wife a Ford when she preferred (and he can afford) a BMW.

It can mean different things depending on context: cheap (from urban dictionary)

A reference to one of the following:

An individual who is extremely careful with money An individual who is easy to have sex with An individual who uses the same tactic/tactics to win An object that is worth very little 1."

That guy's cheap " 2.

She's real cheap " or " He's

real cheap " 3.

You're cheap ! "

" Man, that's cheap " 4."

Those jeans are cheap! "

There are a couple of meanings you can take from the word cheap used in this sense.

It could, as @Benyamin Hamidekhoo said, mean that they are reluctant when it comes to spending money.

Synonyms include tight and tight-fisted.

In the sense of the article you referred to though it means easy to please, or easy to win over.

Someone who is cheap doesn't want much and is a bit of a pushover in that sense.

The article is saying that the man had only physical affection for the writer, and that was the only reason they would even talk to them.

Cheap certainly doesn't mean poor.

That would be referring to the actual value of a person in economic terms, rather than their personality and individual wants.

A "cheap person" is usually a person who doesn't like to spend money, especially someone who doesn't spend money in situations when he can and should.

A slang term for such a person is "cheapskate".

Googling "cheapskate stories" reveals this succinct little gem:

My grandparents have a lot of money but get mad if you don't use paper towels twice.

If they've only been used to mop up water, they have to be set on the counter to dry and are used again.

This is a very fine example of a cheap person.

One of the uses of 'cheap' is to describe that a person is of little worth.

It is a reference to his character.

From Longman: cheap (adj): showing a lack of honesty, moral principles, or sincere feelings, so that you do not deserve respect

Example goes like:

You’re

lying, aren’t you?

You’re so cheap.

Not exactly poor .

But we generally used to call a person 'cheap' because of his or her activities.

It means if someone does not have good behaviour - or we can say that if someone is a bad person then we call him a cheap person.

Question: I'm brazilian and I'm quite fluent in English, however sometimes I have trouble with some expressions. This time it's when someone is called a "cheap person". What does it mean?  I saw this in the following article  http://www.esquire.com/women/advice-98-year-old  Is this a poor person?

What does it mean to call someone a "cheap person"?

A cheap person is someone who doesn't like to spend money, even though they can and should. Cheap can also be used to describe someone with a lack  of honesty and moral principles, or someone of little worth. However, in this article, it means easy to please, or easy to win over.

Cheap can mean lacking in principles, low worth, easy to please. A cheap person is reluctant to spend money, especially when they should.


Sure, you can say life is repetitive .

There's nothing wrong with that.

It does sound like a general statement, though, and not a description of specific things we do over and over again.

So how do we describe things we do regularly, over and over again?

You can talk about your daily routine .

That means something you do every day, though you can also use it to describe things you do only on weekdays, in which case you might say weekday daily routine or daily routine on weekdays .

(Some people skip over this detail and just say daily routine .)

You can also talk about your habits .

Do you make it a habit to clean for ten minutes every day after you get home from work?

Then you can use that word.

If you don't exactly form the habits on purpose, then you might say you're falling into a routine .

And any activity you engage in on a regular basis can be called habitual .

Of course, habits can refer to both good habits , like brushing your teeth regularly, and bad habits , like smoking.

If you're getting bored of doing the same things every day, you might describe it as tedious , or as a noun, tedium , as in the tedium of daily life .

You might say that things are getting old , or that you're getting tired of doing the same things day in and day out.

If you really want to change, you might say that it seems like your life is standing still , but you want to move forward .

(This, of course, is a metaphor.)

Another good alternative, suggested by Mistu4u, is monotonous .

This word usually has a negative connotation, much like boring or repetitive .

You can say that your life has become monotonous, or if you like the "life is..." formulation you started with, it certainly works there, too:

Life is monotonous.

Again, that would sound like a general statement about life, though you can apply the word to individual activities:

Work has been so monotonous lately.

Of course, there are a lot of ways to talk about things like these, so I suggest you wait around to see if anyone else posts an answer :-)

They might have a term or a phrase that you like better.

In addition to "routine" and "habit" you might say that you are "stuck in a rut".

(That is a reference to a wagon whose wheels only go straight because of the rut in the road.

Turning the wagon is difficult as is changing one's routine.)

High-level English users sometimes borrow the French word quotidien, an adjective meaning "everyday".

You can also, of course, use the adjective "everyday", but remember that it's not the same as saying "every day" (indefinite pronoun + noun meaning something like "each day").

In reference to the original question, "Is there any word to describe things we do regularly over and over again?", if you were to ask me how things are going, I might answer, "Oh you know, same old, same old."

In this case, "same old, same old" refers to things that are done regularly over and over again -- all mundane, monotonous, and humdrum things indicating that someone is stuck in a rut.

The second example in your question: Another example would be when two lovers spend too much time together, and fall into a pattern of always doing the same things over and over; nothing appears to change.

reminds me of another word: humdrum ( humdrum = boring because nothing new or interesting ever happens).

Here is an example from The Everything Guide to Writing Your First Novel: All the tools you need to write and sell your first novel by Hallie Ephron: Bridges of Madison County is a literary romance in which Iowa housewife Francesca Johnson, stuck in her routines and a humdrum marriage, meets a handsome photographer who turns out to be her soul mate, and must choose between true love and her family's needs.

One way of describing a welcome routine is tradition .

Although we often think of this word as referring to old customs, it can also refer to more small and routine things.

Macmillan lists one definition of the word as: tradition ( n. ) an activity that happens regularly and has become the usual thing

For example, one author wrote: He pushed the hall door open and, as was his tradition , let it slam behind him .

(Jinna Dodds, Light Song )

I think the word you’re looking for is “mundane”.

Mundane adjective 1. common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative.

Source: dictionary.com definition of “mundane”

One of the words that comes to my mind is- monotonous : not changing and therefore boring

You can use it in such conditions.

Say... a monotonous job or life...

I found the perfect idiom, which I happened to read just now in the early edition of Anne Frank's diary (still in print and being sold on Amazon or Adlibris) transl.

by Mooyaart... "the common round".

It is 2-3 pages in, where Anne complains that she rarely departs from the usual routines of talk with friends, but can now truly confide in someone -- her diary!

Note: I could not find this phrase in any online dictionary, but it seems the perfect thing.

If Mooyaart coined it, then she has just enriched the English language.

CONSISTENTadhering to the same routine, as in "makes delicious coffee ever time.:or "always comes to work with a smile on her face."

Ritual (of an action) arising from convention or habit. "the players gathered for the ritual pregame huddle" (Lexico)

I think this word has more of the depth and connotation the asker is looking for rather than the simplistic words like repetition and habit.

Question: For example, when in our daily life we go to school, do homework, go to the gym and then go to sleep, but all these things we do for a whole week. Repetitive things.  Another example would be when two lovers spend too much time together, and fall into a pattern of always doing the same things over and over; nothing appears to change.  Is there a word to describe this?   Life is repetitive.   Is that correct?

Is there any word to describe things we do regularly over and over again?

Suggestions include: repetitive, monotonous,  routine, habit, stuck in a rut, tradition, same-old-same-old, ritual, and mundane.

Monotonous, repetitive and mundane are options with a negative meaning. More positive expressions are tradition, ritual and same old.


Morning is a common English word, as you know.

Forenoon , on the other hand, is so rare that I'm not sure many native speakers of English will even recognize the word.

How rare is it?

To find out, I searched the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) for both morning and forenoon .

Here are the results I got: Search term Number of results

morning

128954 forenoon 16

That makes morning roughly eight thousand times more common than forenoon .

It's safe to say you should stick to morning and avoid forenoon entirely.

But wait!

Is it possible forenoon is only used in dialects of English other than US English?

To find out, I searched the Corpus of Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) , which contains samples of English from twenty countries.

And in none of those countries was it substantially more common than in the US; the numbers in every country were less than one occurrence per million words.

And the few results that I do find are mostly in fiction.

So yes, it is safe to say

: avoid forenoon .

Use morning instead.

It's not exactly obsolete, but forenoon is at the very least a "dated" usage...

Any native speakers would understand forenoon , but most people wouldn't use the term themselves, and they'd probably notice and classify it as a "minor mistake" if they heard a non-native speaker using it.

More broadly than the other answers, forenoon is one of the time-of-day terms that has become much less commonly used over the last century or so, possibly as a result of the widespread use of artificial lighting.

In earlier times, it was common to see the day divided into much more specific segments, but now only the terms in bold are in common usage for describing the time of day:

dawn twilight (morning) sunrise morning forenoon midday afternoon evening sunset twilight (evening)

dusk night

As a fan of the Aubrey–Maturin series , set in the early 1800s, I'm quite familiar with the nautical term "forenoon watch", but I can't ever recall having seen "forenoon" used in a modern setting.

I grew up on a dairy farm in Dover, PA.

My family, as with most folks in the region, are influenced by PA Dutch (not Dutch as in from Holland but Dutch Anglicized Deutsch/German) dialects.

I'm not surprised it doesn't show up in Internet searches as I don't know that I've ever actually written the word but have used it commonly among my family and others from the region in conversation regularly.

I am a British, native speaker of English, living in Denmark.

I like the word 'forenoon' and sometimes use it, particularly in writing.

I do not regard it as archaic, but I may however be influenced in this by Danish, a language I speak every day and fluently.

In Danish, we distinguish between 'morgen' (morning) and 'formiddag' (forenoon).

We say 'God morgen!'

(Good morning!), but only up until about 09.30 or 10.00 hrs.

After that, we switch to 'Goddag!'

(Good day!).

I have always regarded 'forenoon' as a word much more used and favoured in Scotland than in England, and I admit that it is generally speaking far more used by older people than younger ones. '

Forenoon' has a nice ring to it, I feel. :-)

Question: I came across this word in some software code written by someone else. I knew what it meant (in Dutch we call it  voormiddag ), but I didn't know the word exists.  I've always heard/seen people refer to  morning  and  afternoon , never to  forenoon  and  afternoon . Is it a word people commonly use?

Is "forenoon" commonly used?

Although forenoon is not exactly obsolete, its usage is at the very least "dated" and much less used over the last century. It is so rare that many native speakers of English may not even  recognize  the word. It is much more used and favoured in Scotland than in England, and generally by older people.

Forenoon is rare and dated usage, it is more likely to be used by older people.


The word "can" does not imply please.

It is nice to say please

but please does not always mean someone is being polite.

Usually the word "please" might be added to a simple sentence like that because the person asking may feel like you are not doing X fast enough, that you normally wouldn't do X, that X is doing them a favor...

I personally like not hearing the please because it usually means that everything is running smoothly.

I would hate to think that someone would feel they need to say please to get me to do something.

Fundamentally, "can you please do...

" is a request , while "can you do..." is a question (albeit one with an implied request attached).

Can you pass the salt?

Literally, this is asking whether the salt shaker is within your reach, and thus whether you have the capability to grab it and pass it along.

However, there is also an implied request, namely if you are capable of doing it, then you should do so.

This does not mean that there's

an

implied "please" in there; this is definitely the lowest on the politeness scale.

Can you please pass the salt?

This is no longer asking about capability; you are assumed to be able to reach the salt shaker and pick it up.

As a request, it's polite enough for most purposes, but we can do better.

Could you pass the salt?

This is also an outright request; capability is assumed.

Where it belongs on the politeness scale is somewhat debatable, but I would say it's about equal to "

can you please...".

Could you please pass the salt?

This is the proper, polite form of this request.

We have both the conditional and the "please" in there, so the request has been softened about as far as it can be without resorting to overblown false humility

("I was wondering if I could possibly trouble you to do me the immense favor of please passing the salt").

That all said, the politeness (or lack thereof) of a request depends greatly on the tone. "

Can you pass the salt?

" said without any particular emphasis would be much more polite than "Can you please pass the salt?!

", because the latter, with the emphasis on the please and the exclamatory tone, implies frustration rather than politeness.

To address something from the comments: Could you please just pass the salt?

Here, we've blown right past politeness and into exasperation.

This would only be used if you've already asked for the salt, and instead of being passed the requested spice container, you were given a long story about how salt is bad for you and how it's impolite to ruin the spicing that the chef has so carefully achieved and really, don't you think the stew is already salty enough?

These are two different sentences - understand why by replacing 'can' with 'could'.

Could you do this?

(do you have the capability?)

Could you please do this

(will you do this because I am asking you to do so?)

Can does not imply please.

When speaking informally, many people omit please ; but when you are in a formal situation, it's impolite to not say please.

Both are proper to ask.

They both convey the same kind of request.

The first is more direct and can be used in normal day to day business, casual, etc.

conversation.

The second is a little more polite but caries the same meaning.

If I were speaking to my dad, I'd use the second.

If I were speaking to my office college or a friend, I'd use the first.

That said, please is not implied in the first.

Question: When someone asks me    Can you do this?   I feel that it is missing the “please”.   Is “please” already implied by “can”, or is it proper to ask    Can you please do this?

“Can you do this?” vs. “Can you please do this?”

Both are proper to ask and they both convey the same request. However, the word "can" does not imply "please" and using "please" makes it a little more polite. On the other hand,  some people reported that they like not hearing the please because it usually means that everything is running smoothly.

Please' is not implied by 'can'. 'Please' adds politeness. Both convey similar requests.


Originally, everyone spelled it centre , but because of Noah Webster's spelling reforms , people in the US started spelling it center , particularly in the last century.

Although the revised spelling center has been adopted internationally to varying extents, centre is still more popular in most regions.

But regardless of how you spell it, it's the same word, so it has the same meaning either way.

To get a clearer picture of which spellings are used in which countries, I turned to the Corpus of Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) .

After searching for both terms, I took the raw data and created a chart of percentages using the formula center /

(center + centre) , which I sorted in descending order.

Here's what I found:

Percent of the time center is used rather than centre , by region United States 92.2% Philippines 87.5%

Pakistan 54.0%

Hong Kong 51.8%

Bangladesh 51.2% India 43.8% Tanzania 42.5% Singapore 40.7% Kenya 40.3% Jamaica 40.3% Nigeria 39.1% Malaysia 35.1%

Ghana 34.4%

Sri Lanka 33.8%

Canada 33.0% New Zealand 24.2% Ireland 20.1% South Africa 19.8% Great Britain 19.4% Australia 18.1%

As you can see, center is more popular in the US, while centre is more popular in the UK.

Many regions fall closer to the center of the spectrum, with India favoring centre only somewhat, and Hong Kong using both spellings in roughly equal proportions.

Overall, centre is more popular in international English.

Which should you use?

Well, if you're required to follow a style guide, use whichever spelling it suggests.

If you have a choice, and you're writing in a region like the US or UK that strongly prefers one spelling, I suggest you use that spelling.

(I don't think either spelling is ever "incorrect", but it's possible that the person grading your test might disagree with me!)

Otherwise, you can spell it however you like.

Finally, I'd like to add one note about the percentages above.

The tendencies at the top and bottom ends of the chart are likely to be stronger than the percentages indicate, primarily because spellings are usually respected in proper nouns regardless of region.

If you talk about the Capital Centre , for example, you're likely to spell the word centre rather than center regardless of which region you're in.

But since most uses of this word are not in proper nouns, the percentages should be roughly accurate, particularly toward the center of the list; it should be enough for you to decide how to spell the word.

Centre is correct in international and British English.

Center is an alternative spelling used mainly in American English.

The meaning is the same.

I'm Australian, so the following refers to British/Australian/New Zealand spelling and also for most Commonwealth (ex-British Empire) countries too.

The spelling of these two words is different depending on

it's meaning.

If it is referring to the middle of something, such as the middle of a circle or in fact any shape, then the spelling is CENTER.

An example is "I walked to the center of the circle".

If the word is referring to an organisation or a building, then it's spelt as "CENTRE".

An example would be "I started my new job at the Australian Centre for International Relations" or another example would be "the music score was deposited at the University Music Centre".

As for "meter" vs "metre"

the spelling is also different depending on what it's referring to.

An instrument of measurement is spelt "METER" - example: the gas meter or the water meter.

If it's referring to distance it's "METRE" - example: "the 100 metre sprint" or "the steel pipe was 20 centimetres long".

Also the metric measurement of volume is spelt "LITRE".

The United States spells it as "liter", everybody else (I believe) spells it as "litre".

In the US the spelling for both "meter / metre" is just "meter".

I hope this is of some help!

I don't see any difference between the two forms except the spelling.

Center is commonly regarded as an American spelling, whereas in Britain, people tend to spell it as centre .

This is similar to some words like meter and metre , color and colour , etc.

The spelling centre is standard in UK English.

In Canada it is typical in proper names, e.g. Toronto Centre for the Arts, but "center" is also commonly used otherwise, e.g. shopping center , center of town .

Both spellings can be encountered even in the same text, e.g. in NHL hockey where there are many Canadian and US teams, reference might be made to the "center" forward position and a "centre" where a game is played. From Wiktionary .

They are two ways to spell the same thing: centre is the UK spelling for center .

center is the US spelling for centre .

Source:

Cmabridge dictionary.

Question: Which one is correct:  examination center  or  examination centre ? What is the difference between  center  and  centre ?  Is the difference only in spelling?  What is the usage difference?

What's the difference between "center" and "centre"?

Center  is an American spelling, whereas in Britain, people spell it as  centre .  It is the same word and it means the same thing. Originally, everyone spelled it  centre , but because of  Noah Webster's spelling reforms , people in the US started spelling it  center , particularly in the last century.

Both carry the same meaning. Centre is UK English and center is US English.


The critical question here is How does your teacher pronounce intervocalic

/r/?

In some quite prestigious dialects—including the Stage British

I was taught—/r/

falling between two vowels is pronounced as a voiced tip-flap.

That is, the tongue does not curve backward toward the roof of the mouth but touches the back of the upper teeth, or the alveolar ridge immediately above that point, once, very briefly.

The sound which this produces is virtually indistinguishable from the alveolar flap which most Americans use for intervocalic /t/, as in beautiful .

Indeed, I am not at all confident that these are two different sounds.

The alveolar flap is notated in IPA with the 'fish-hook r', /ɾ/ . Wikipedia notes—I have no idea whether this is directly relevant to your situation—that This sound is often analyzed (and therefore transcribed) by native English speakers as an 'R-sound' in many foreign languages.

For example, the 'Japanese R' in hara, akira, tora, etc. is actually an alveolar tap ∗ .

In languages where this segment is present but not phonemic, it is often an allophone of either an alveolar stop ([t] or [d]) or a rhotic consonant like the alveolar trill or alveolar

approximant.

∗ Note Wikipedia's assertion that “The terms tap and flap may be used interchangeably”.

What your (NS) teacher reportedly said does not reflect standard English pronunciation - the one that is usually taught in an L2 setting.

However, Wells 1984 reports a similar phenomenon in the same intervocalic position but between words in

northern (UK) dialects:

Beautiful is traditionally pronounced /bjuːtɪfʊl/ ( link ), but native English speakers often replace

/t/ sounds with /d/

sounds, so it often sounds like /bju:dɪfʊl/ .

With further elision due to omission of the glottal stop in some accents, this can sound like /bju:ɪfʊl/

or even /bjur:ɪfʊl/ - especially in the southern states of America and some North Eastern parts of England and Cockney English in London, which is possibly what you're hearing in this case.

That said, in my experience, most English speakers will pronounce beautiful as /bju:dɪfʊl/: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oofSnsGkops#t=048 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe1wtkkt9-E#t=54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAfyFTzZDMM#t=053s

Your teacher is mistaken.

It is pronounced with the "T" sound rather than the "R" sound.

It is also possible that the pronunciation is where the 't' is a merely a glottal stop (common in British English, especially in the London area) rather than having been transformed into a 'd' sound (which is more likely the American version).

Here is another video of a large number of AmE native speakers using the word beautiful.

Give it a try!

From the mouth of babes... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHWPYJuDuZQ

It depends what language you're learning from as well.

The way Americans pronounce the T in this word actually sounds a lot like a Japanese/Spanish (I'm guessing there are more)

R.

It works if it's got that slight roll.

The English would pronounce it like a simple T though.

Question: I was very impressed when my teacher told me what "beautiful" word pronounced like  beauRiful  and not  beauTiful .  I looking on the internet and everyone pronounced like  beauTiful .  Where I can actually listen to the pronunciation of that word?

How to pronounce the word 'beautiful'?

Your teacher is mistaken. It is pronounced with the "T" sound rather than the "R" sound.  It is also possible that the pronunciation is where the 't' is a merely a glottal stop (common in British English, especially in the London area), or where it has been transformed into a 'd' sound (which is more likely the American version).

It is pronounced with 't' rather than 'r'. Sometimes a glottal stop is used.


You would say "in the USA" (although it's worth pointing out that you would say "in America," not "in the America").

As chrylis pointed out, the word the is linked to the word States .

So, to answer the question, "Where was this car made?"

(assuming the car was made in Detroit), one could say any of the following: It was made in the United States.

It was made in the States .

(somewhat informal, but acceptable, esp.

conversationally)

It was made in the USA.

It was made in America.

It was made in North America .

(less specific; refers to the whole continent, but still a valid answer)

It was made in the Americas .

(even less specific, refers to two continents, plus Central America, too) Getting back to your original question (when to use

the when referring to a nation), that happens when one of the key words in the country's name requires an article.

This could be because of a word like Kingdom or Republic :

I bought this in the Republic of Korea .

(but: I bought this in South Korea. )

I bought this in the Dominican Republic.

I bought this in the UAE .

or because of plurality:

I bought this in the United States.

I bought this in the Philippines.

I bought this in the Bahamas .

Be careful, though!

Not all countries ending with "s" are plural:

I bought this in Honduras .

"In the USA" is correct.

We put "the" in front of the names of some countries, though for most we do not.

Basically we use "the" in front of names that are "descriptions" rather than simply a name, like "the United Kingdom" and "the United States".

We don't use "the" in most cases where it's plain name, like "France" or "Latvia".

Some countries have "long forms" of the name that add descriptions and so call for "the", but also have a short form where we do not use "the".

For example, "I visited China", but "I visited the People's Republic of China".

Note no "the" in the first case but we do use "the" in the second case.

There are a few countries with names that don't sound like descriptions but that do use "the".

Examples I can think of off the top of my head are "the Bahamas" and "the Philippines".

We used to say "the Ukraine", but I understand that nation has said that it prefers to simply be called "Ukraine".

I've heard both "Gambia" and "the Gambia".

You just have to learn these special cases by rote.

"In the USA" is correct.

America is composed of states and 'states' is a noun.

You can address it as America.

For example, you can say that "ABC lives in America".

But to be more specific, ABC lives in the United States of America

looks more complete.

USA is an abbreviation for United States of America , and the is used because the proper noun is a noun phrase whose main noun is the ordinary noun States .

The definite article is also used in other country names (and their abbreviations) that are phrases made from ordinary nouns, such as the United Kingdom or the People's Republic of China .

Other languages have similar usage; the official name of Argentina in Spanish is la República Argentina (the Argentine Republic), and the country is referred to in Spanish as la Argentina .

Although other responses are correct, if we want to decompose the word USA into its meaning, I would say that "USA" is a designation of "The United States of America" like "BMW" is a designation of a unique name.

So you can say "Made in USA".

But it's just my opinion.

Question: I want to know, what are the differences between "in the USA" and "in USA"? When to use "the" before a nation's name?

Which one is correct, "in the USA" or "in USA"?

"In the USA" is correct - as in "In the "The United States of America". However, you would say "in America," not "in the America".


According to the Harvard Dialect Survey (click to see the map), route (as in, "the route from one place to another") a. rhymes with "hoot" (29.99%)

b. rhymes with "out" (19.72%)

c.

I can pronounce it either way interchangeably (30.42%)

d.

I say it like "hoot" for the noun and like "out" for the verb.

e.

I say it like "out" for the noun and like "hoot" for the verb.

f. other (1.40%)

(11137 respondents)

This, and several other, pronunciations, are influenced by spelling, and not from ancient variations in the pronunciation (contrast the marry/merry merger) and hence we don't expect it to be tied to one region.

This map confirms this, although there do seem to be some tendencies: http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_26.html

I am from Buffalo like "out."

Wife from Cali "root.

Causes family problems anytime the topic comes up like today watching drag racing at Route 66 Raceway.

In England and the rest of the UK, route and root are pronounced the same and rhyme with the words loot and moot .

I'm Aussie

and I'd prefer 'rowt' version of route as not to confuse it with 'root' in the bedroom, so to speak.

You get stupid comments when saying something similar to 'I'm taking this route (root) to the woods today' like 'Great, who is she?'

I am from Massachusetts and we have always pronounced it "root" - not matter what you are referring to.

As I paper route, route 1, what route you're going to take.

It's all pronounced root.

But I have realized that most people outside of New England pronounce it route with the "out" sound.

And most times when you hear it on tv

it's pronounced that way too.

But us New Englanders like being different :)

I'm no professional, but my teacher told me that "route", when referring to a way/path taken (eg Route 10 in Pokemon), is pronounced sounding like "hoot".

The sound which rhymes with "out" is only used in "router", as in the networking device.

Question: Where do people pronounce "route" as ro͞ot, and as rout?  In Maryland of U.S., I hear only rout, and I was looked at strangely when I said ro͞ot as if I wasn't speaking proper English. When I changed myself to get used to speaking rout, I  hear only ro͞ot in TOEFL examination.

Where do people pronounce "route" as ro͞ot, and as rout?

In England and the rest of the UK,  route  and  root  are pronounced the same, and rhyme with hoot. However, people also pronounce route with the "out" sound.

It depends on region and could be pronounced 'root' or 'rowt'.

Rowt' may be the pronunciation depending on region.


"their money was not earned easily" may not be a commonly used set phrase, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

If you were writing very formally, however, the more common "was hard earned" might be better.

There are two main ideas that you want to convey: your parents were not well paid (or underpaid ), and their money was hard earned .

To rephrase your sentence to be more idiomatic, here is one possible way: When I was young, my parents were not well paid.

I knew that their money was hard earned, so I rarely ask them ...

"Their money was not earned easily" is not a commonly-used phrase, but it is perfectly clear what you mean and I think it is well said.

Yes, you could say, "They had a low income", but that's not as colorful.

As OP has discovered, money isn't earned easy (or easily ) is not a particularly common turn of phrase.

There are no written instances of either of those exact forms in Google Books, but there are hundreds of instances of money doesn't come easy (and easily ).

Far more common (Google Books claims about 11,200 results ) is... money was hard to come by ...

which I think focusses more on the fact that there wasn't much money, even if you worked hard .

Just to point out, you already provided a better idiom: "I knew that their wages were low .

So I rarely asked them for an allowance to buy candies or toys."

However, some others may be more popular:

they didn't make much money, we were poor, we didn't have much money, they didn't have much money, they were underpaid

I suppose any of those could work, depending on what you want to mean and the "voice" you want to use.

Question: Suppose that when I was a child, my parents' wages were low. Is it good to write:   I knew that their money was not earned easily. So I rarely ask them for allowances to buy candies or toys.   In particular, is it good to write  their money was not earned easily ? I found  money was not earned easily  appears very rarely in Google search.

"Their money was not earned easily."

Their money was not earned easily is not a commonly-used phrase, but it is perfectly clear what you mean and I think it is well said. Alternative suggestions include: they didn't make much money, we were poor, we didn't have much money, they didn't have much money, or they were underpaid.

This is not common but not incorrect either. Didn't make much money, were poor are alternative renderings.


"Walk through the tunnel" means to enter the tunnel on one end and emerge out the other end.

"Walk across the tunnel" could mean the same thing, but only if the context establishes that.

It could also mean to enter the tunnel through a side entrance, and exit out another side entrance (i.e. the short way, not the long way); or it could mean to go across the top of the tunnel (e.g. if it's underground and the road goes over it); or variations on those themes.

In general, "through" implies entering the middle of something and then going out the other side, whereas "across" implies crossing the middle, but not necessarily going in the thing you're crossing.

Across is used with surfaces, places, flat objects/areas, or things that you are "on."

Across is also used if it's important to mean "on the other side of", or "moving over" something like a river, hole, bridge, etc.

Through X is used if you are surrounded by or "in"/"inside" X.

So you go through a tunnel, but not across it.

If you say you went across a tunnel, it would mean you somehow went over and on top of the tunnel (likely perpendicular to it) and avoided going in it.

You might go through a tunnel to get across a mountain range, though.

Both of these words are used to indicate a movement from one place to another.

Using " across " is somehow like using on .

We usually use across to talk about moving from one side to the other, usually on the surface.

It is used for a two-dimensional and open space (across a wall, city, sheet of paper, road and ...).

We took a boat across the river.

Looking out across the ocean, he saw land.

Using " through ", however, is somehow like using in or inside .

Imagine a place which is surrounded by something (for example a tunnel or a forest which is covered with tall trees).

When we want to move from one side of this surrounded place to the other, we use "through".

Through is used for a movement in a three-dimensional and covered place.

I am driving through the tunnel.

She loves walking through the forest.

About grass and lawn, if we are talking about a place which is covered with tall or long grass, we should use "through": When my dog runs through long grass, it’s difficult to find him.

but if we are talking about a field covered with short or small grass or lawn, we should use "across": Tomorrow at this time you'll be chasing peacocks across the lawn.

If it's something enclosed , such as a tunnel or passageway, you would usually be said to walk (or pass, or drive) through it from end to end.

If it's something more or less open (but still distinctly separate from the surroundings), such as a bridge, you would usually be said to walk (or pass, or drive) across it (and the act is crossing it).

Something like an ordinary ground-level road or sidewalk you would walk (etc.) along or alongside .

If you are not moving from one end of this thing (e.g., road) to another, but only briefly occupying the same space, you would usually be crossing the road.

To cross a tunnel would usually mean that it's buried and you're above it, not within it at any time, although it would be possible to cross a tunnel from another, intersecting tunnel.

To move through something, one must be able to be inside it either literally or figuratively .

Usually a container or the notion of a container is invoked.

Walk through the tunnel Drive through a rain storm Run through the forest Walk through the streets of London in each case a container is established: tunnel , rain storm , forest , the collection of London streets Across usually implies a position of being over or on top of but may mean close by , and may, but not necessarily refer to movement .

Referring to movement Walk across a bridge Fly across the country Run across the street Referring to over

The bridge goes across the river Hands Across America Referring to close by Sit across from somebody The building across from the station From your examples, one walks through a tunnel is correct walk through the tunnel across to the other side

Through is used to cross a three-dimensional place or enclosed object: like a tunnel, forest or jungle.

A forest is a three-dimensional place as it is covered with full of tall trees.

In contrast, an open field is usually empty, does not cover with trees, which is act like a two-dimensional place.

The man is walking across the field.

The man is walking through the jungle.

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Question: walk across the tunnel  walk through the tunnel    Which one is correct? Can anyone explain me the exact difference between the through and across? I am really confused with these 2 prepositions.

Difference between "across" and "through"

Both of these words are used to indicate a movement from one place to another.   If something is enclosed, such as a tunnel, forest or passageway, you would usually be said to walk  through  it from end to end. "Through" implies "inside". If something is more or less  open  (separate from the surroundings), such as a bridge, you would usually be said to walk across  it. Across  is used with surfaces, places, flat objects/areas, or things that you are "on."

You walk across an open surface that you can walk on, such as a bridge. You walk through an enclosed space such as a tunnel.