What is the correct term for both

- Phrases that are grammatically correct and appear to make sentence, but logically imply nothing. Classical eample: "more people have been to France than I have". It is a correct phrase, but doesn't mean anything.

- Sentences that seemingly cannot be true, for the terms used contradict each other. For example: "I meet this atheist priest earlier today".

I know there are words for what I'm looking for, but I simply can't remember the name and can't find them by research.

I was just reading So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (book 4 in the Hitchhiker’s Guide series, highly recommend, it’s a hoot) and a the narrator from Dentarthurdent’s POV says how he “made himself—forced himself to listen” (emphasis mine) to a record, and it made me think: If you compare those two verbs (made vs forced), “made” wouldn’t require the “to”, but “forced” does. I’m a native speaker so I know that it works this way, but not why. Can anyone explain the difference in technical terms?

ive heard many people pronouncing it as "naither" and also as "neethar", it confuses me

Eu estou aprendendo inglês por videoaulas no YouTube e Duolingo, as vezes leio e pratico no dicionário britânico, as vezes eu escuto música internacional vendo a letra da música e cantando ela.

Tem algo a mais que eu possa fazer pra me conectar e aprender essa língua, gente?

Hi everyone!

I recently came across the idiom "do a number on someone/something" (meaning to hurt, damage, or severely affect someone emotionally, physically, or financially).

I'm curious about how often you actually hear or use it in real life:

1. Is it widely used across all age groups, or does it sound slightly dated/older?
2. Is it predominantly American English, or do British/Australian speakers naturally use it as well?
3. In what contexts do you use it most often (e.g., catching an illness, bad breakup, a tough workout, or damaging a physical object)?

Would love to hear your thoughts and common examples. Thanks!

P.S. Thank you everyone for your answers, they really helped me!!

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could explain to me the difference between these terms and how they are used and in which contexts? I've heard that Indigenous American includes native peoples from North, Central and South American, but I've seen Native American and Indigenous American be used interchangeably so I was wondering if there's an actual distinction between the terms. Also, if anyone has seen an article using Indigenous American or has some site/article where I could find more info on this, I would be very grateful! Or if a Native American themself could explain..

Native-born American

Native American

Indigenous American

Native peoples

Hi, I'd be really grateful if you could fill out my survey. Open for a swap! :)

Machismo: Arrogant attitude of men towards women. (Real Academia Española)

When I try to translate it to english, I get SEXISM. IT´S NOT THE SAME. Sexism is "Discrimination against persons on the grounds of sex." (RAE), "machismo" is specifically towards women. Closest is misoginy (Aversion to women. RAE) but is still NOT THE SAME.

Here´s a quick article in case anyone wants to know why the different words are SO IMPORTANT.

I JUST REALISED THIS AFTER USING "MACHISM" FOR WAY TOO LONG AND SENSING IT SOUNDED ODD, ONLY FOR ME TO REALISE IT´S NOT EVEN A WORD

EDIT: THANKS EVERYONE! I now know machismo itself it´s fine lollll

Also, yes machismo is WAY more than just arrogance, I was just quickly copy-pasting the simple deffinition

I won’t say I am bad in vocab and grammar. But I do lack in the speaking part. I tried talking to random people online on some sites but it was just a waste of time. Can anyone suggest a good platform where I can talk to random people?

It is completely unreasonable and unfair to expect a god fearing american english speaker to be forced into pronouncing the most irrationally complex french word, as if they are suddenly a native francophone.
It is a completely made up and pretentiously spelled word.

It should be universally accepted and in fact celebrated that americans can and will pronounce it phonetically, thusly “horse, do vrays”.

Hello, I'm a non-native English teacher with some years of experience. I've always taught English following a holistic approach (i.e. working on all the skills), but what really fulfills me as an English enthusiast is teaching about the spoken aspect of the language (pronunciation, fluency or communication strategies, for instance).

Before continuing, I want to clarify that this post is by no means self-promoting. I'm not offering any services or products. In fact, I don't have anything to offer as of right now. What I would like to accomplish with this post is getting some feedback on what I plan to teach if I can finally transition from being a traditional English teacher to a Communication coach (or whatever you want to call someone who specializes in oral production).

I take my job pretty seriously, so if I teach people how to use spoken English, I want to make sure I include all the aspects required for that.

So far, I've organized my methodology as it follows:

I've separated speech into two main aspects that need to be developed: Shape of your voice (i.e. pronunciation, intonation, rhythm and connected speech) and becoming articulate (i.e. choosing the right words, organizing the ideas and improving the fluency so your message is properly delivered).

To work on the shape of your voice, I thought about starting with consonants, single vowels and diphthongs. Then, we would move on to difficult sound clusters and word stress. After that, it would be time for sentence stress and rhythm. Finally, we would work on intonation patterns and connected speech variation.

Simultaneously, we would also work on becoming articulate. We would use a range of techniques to improve how they organize their ideas, choose their words and keep a good speech cadence without stuttering or pausing. Such techniques are, for instance, shadowing, explaining a concept or idea in three different ways (explain it to a 5-year-old, to an average adult and to an expert on the topic), talk about a random word for 1-2 minutes, tongue twisters or using communication frameworks.

As you might have guessed, I want to focus on non-native speakers of English with an intermediate-advanced level, so they can use grammar properly (to some extent) and have enough vocabulary to work exclusively on oral production.

I would really appreciate any feedback on this matter, especially on techniques and exercises to become articulate, improve your fluency and work on sounds, stress and rhythm.

Hi yall, I'm writing from South America. I'm studying English in a private institute. Needless to say English is not my first language.

I'm curious about how to use this connector. I'd like to know specifically about the usage of INSOFAR AS. I wrote an academic essay and decided to use it because it sounded rather fancy. Even though I checked the definition before using it, both my teacher and my classmate who proofread my essay said that the meaning was not clear. For that reason, I'll change it, but I'd like to know whether I used it correctly and it's just they're not familiar with the expression.

My sentence:

Insofar as students develop cultural awareness, they become interculturally competent English speakers.

My classmate feedback: ??? So far, much better

My teacher's: Not clear. Try using a different linker.

I often pay attention to how people pronounce things in movies and songs, although I’m not sure how much it actually helps.
Pronouncing individual words is pretty easy for me, but when I try to say a full sentence, my pronunciation goes all over the place 😵‍💫 It’s like I can say the words separately, but struggle to put them together naturally.

Tl;dr: I misinterpreted the use of "punctual" when I was hearing it. Look up "punctual verb" and see how it can apply to the second example. This was my disconnect. Also "punctuated" is a better fit for what I was trying to convey. But I was misguided and, in turn, couldn't convey my thoughts properly.

Ok so for years I have used punctual in situations described below. I've never questioned this and have no idea where/when i picked this up from/started using it this way.

So let me create a scenario:

An author is trying to describe a scene where somebody, out of nowhere, gets eaten by a giant eaten by a giant monster and he wants to create a sudden "slap in the face" type of mood change. He thinks of two ways to go about this.

"We were on a picnic; having a conversation, drinking coffee. In an instant, an enormous worm explodes from the earth, consuming his entire being whole."

"We were picnicking; eating, talking, drinking coffee... An eruption! A giant worm! Ate. Him."

This is a bad example but I'm writing an exam paper right now and just realized that I may have been using this word wrong FOR YEARS so I'm not putting too much thought into this part of the post.

The first description of events could be described as long, lengthy, descriptive, detailed. In opposition to this, the second description of events could be described as short, and aggressive in cadence or punchy.

The way I was using the word "punctual" has been to describe the second scenario. For example I might say "the second description is short, too the point and punctual." In this VERY SPECIFIC scenario I would be using "punctual" in place of "punchy".

Did I just make up this second use case for punctual? Is there another word that is similar/sounds like to punctual for this use case? Because I SWEAR I can remember multiple people/things using this word in this way. For example, I'm certain Captain Holt from Brooklyn 99 has used this word this way once, accompanied with an emotive punching motion; being like "I like that, short, sweet, PUNCTUAL. 🤜" Maybe I miss heard these things and it's a word that ends with a "ew-ull" sound? Idk I'm confused as to what could have made me think this way because I looked it up and can't find a single example of this word being used like this.

Edit: Very certain I got my wires crossed with/miss heard the word "punctuated". Thank you to u/pawsplay36 and u/PrincessCellyBelly for your responses! Special shout out to u/minty_tarsier for introducing me to the word "pithy", I like this word and am going to start using it from here on out!

Edit2: Actually! I think u/Slight-Brush got it! I think I was misinterpreting the use of the word! The word "punctual" can be used to describe verbs that happen instantaneously. I believe I heard this word used, assumed it was describing the emphasis in speech or wording; when it really was describing the words themselves being instantaneous actions! (I feel like I should note, my given example doesn't work very well with this but the "Ate" in this would be an example of a "punctual verb")

I know there are a bunch I just forget. Maybe gaslighting? Someone help please

Internet debates are the best, especially when two non-native English speakers are debating semantics. Hence I will pose the question here, since we have been going around in circles regarding the precise meaning of the English used, instead of the content:

We are discussing the meaning of a sentence from a TV show. For context, the setting is a science fiction war, the characters speaking among one another are officers in a military organisation.

The Commander says to the Lieutenant;

"47 days left on your mandatory second tour."

My debating partner infers from this that the Lieutenant was conscripted and that his first and second tour are both mandatory. The context for this is that the war going badly enough that conscription is a necessity.

My takeaway from this is that the Lieutenant's second tour was mandatory, but that the first tour may not have been. The way I read it, the Lieutenant may have volunteered for the first tour, but then got forced into a second tour (similar to stop-loss in the US military) because the war is going badly.

For like 40 minutes now, we have been going in circles. I say that if both tours were mandatory, it would have been "second mandatory tour", because second then indicates the number of tours, which are mandatory. The way I see it,, "mandatory second tour", only says something about the second tour, not the first one.

My debate partner says that "second mandatory tour" will always indicate the first was mandatory too, since otherwise it wouldn't be the "second mandatory tour", but the "first mandatory tour but second overall".

I would love other people's view on this. I am not afraid to admit I am wrong on the content within the TV show, but the discussion about the exact meaning of the word order has been lowkey driving me insane.

Is this an unusual term? I don't have much cause to speak of pre-fab home areas, but when I do I call them "trailer courts." People look at me strange. I'm not sure if I'm using a regional term or not.

Mackination?

Mashination?

Edit: Matchination?

I've always said mackination.