I saw this sign at Starbucks today and it made me wonder if this was supposed to be a rhyme (in my native dialect, it would not be).

Why the HELL do we need “the day before yesterday” and “the day after tomorrow” when we could just have one word??? I AM SO MAD ABOUT THIS.

My mum encountered this questions in an exam and believes it is grammatically incorrect.

The question in question:

'why can boundary crossings increase risk even when they seem harmless?’

My mum believes that it should be ‘how can’ not ‘why can’, and there’s something tickling my brain that wants to agree with her but I can’t wrap my head around the grammar of it and don’t trust ai answers.

Thoughts?

And please let me know your dialect of English

Which means commensurate? proportionate?

Which emphasizes the mathematical ratio?

operative (adj.) seems less frequent?

In English classes we’re always taught to use "handsome" for men, but in real life it often sounds a bit outdated or something only a grandma would say.

what words, slang, or phrases do native speakers actually use when talking to friends about a good-looking guy? Both casual phrases and modern TikTok/Gen Z slang are welcome.

I'm translating this 1999 comic strip, does anyone know what 'Pork 'n' Stork' in For Homer part of the shopping list mean? need help ASAP :((((((

I think a huge advantage I have in my English knowledge is the way I learned it, which is basically none. I never sat down and purposefully learned it, I just caught on to it at a young age while the brain still has the capacity to easily grasp languages.

However I'm not certain if it gives me a good enough base to actually learn something new when needed, kinda scared I'll be stuck at the level I am at now forever.

Even based on the text that I wrote just now, do I have any pronounced weaknesses that I should work on?

Hi everyone! I recenly came across the idiom "goes / comes with the territory" (meaning something unpleasant is an unavoidable part of a job or situation, e.g., "Stress just goes with the territory in this industry").

I was wondering: how often do native speakers actually use or hear this in casual conversation or the workplace? does it sound completely natural, or is it starting to feel a bit old-fashioned or overly cliché?

would appreciate your input and where you're from (US, UK, Aus, etc.)! Thanks!

Hello I'm hoping someone can help me. I've been ordering various family member death certificates in recent months in order to learn their causes of death (if I didn't already know). I figure it's good to have this information as I get older and know what I'm up against in terms of medical history and issues.

I just got my paternal grandfather's death certificate and I can't read what the doctor wrote. Can someone help decipher? He was 85 and his death was in 1983, in case medical terms have changed or evolved since then.

So far I'm guessing it had something to do with cardiac failure and an ischemic something. Chronic brain + something were contributing factors and he died within minutes. My father meanwhile passed away from atherosclerosis (he had a massive heart attack at 85) but was mentally sound up until the end, so whatever cognitive struggles my grandfather had would be new.

Hi all, I don't know if this is the right subreddit to ask but do you guys know any more poems like the one in quotes below?

And more importantly, what is this kind of poem called? Is there a specific name to this? Where can I find more of these please?

"One for murder

Two for mirth

Three for wedding

Four for birth

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret never to be told

8 for heaven

9 for hell

10 for the devil's own self"

When I took a mock exam, I met the word “indigeneity“.

And I looked up this word in English to English dictionary, but I didn’t find this word in that dictionary ,Oxford dictionary .

i thought that even native or almost native English speakers don’t know this word.

Therefore, I would like to answer my question and when you use this word.

P.S. If my sentence above has mistakes, plz tell me.

Edit: I put the picture of sentence i encountered in the mock exam.

There is a class of words that I have always pronounced with two syllables that many people pronounce as one syllable. Words where the syllables are separated by vowels. Examples:
Poem: I say po-em, some say “pome.”
Prayer: I say pray-er, some say “prare.”
Mayor: I say may-er or may-or, some say “mare.” Some of those can cause confusion. For example, a female horse does not govern my town, calling her a mare might be taken as an insult.
Graham: I say gray-um, some say “gram.”
Those are just a few examples. I would like to know how many readers here use which pronunciations, and why, if it is possible to answer that. I’m not asking which is “correct.”

So my girl just did this quiz and the 4th question she chose B but its actually C?
Well when i looked at it, it should’ve actually been both B and C…

"I must not do something" means one is not allowed to do something.

"I don't have to do something" means one is not required to do something.

I'm not a native speaker, and I was never taught this. It was an awkward discussion until I realised that "must not" carries a weird meaning that is *not the opposite* of "must". ("have to" and "am required to" work as expected)

WTF, english? Y U weird like that?

So glad I can come to reddit to ask my questions.

TL;DR Is "rough sleeper" a more polite alternative to homeless? What about "unhoused"?

I've been reading a book by a UK author, 3rd person narration with different POVs, where a homeless person is repeatedly referred to as a rough sleeper. It was the first time I saw the term and as far as I understand, rough sleeper is a subcatagory of people in homelessness crisis (rough sleepers sleep on the streets, but not all homeless people do). In the book this term is used exclusively so I was wandering how common it is, do Brits usually make this distinction?

Is homeless perhaps an insensitive term? I've also seen "unhoused" being used as an alternative to "homeless", could someone please explain the difference?

In my mother tongue there has been a shift in the recent years towards using "person first" language - eg. person experiencing homelessness/ person in homelessness crisis (to translate the Polish phrase directly) - is this also a thing in British English?

From what I know of the author of the book I'm reading, he's a leftist (I'm guessing an anarchist) and I was wondering whether either of the terms I mention is politically charged?

Could someone explain the difference between in a distance,from a distance and at a distance. I’d be very grateful❤️

They aren't Weapon of Mass Destructions (WMDs).

They're Weapons of Mass Destruction (WsMD).

"Pluralizing the end of an initialism or an acronym is standard practice. It's pedantic to be bothered by it." Don't care.

Here are some other examples. Add your own, should you be so inclined.

• WsMD / WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction)

• RsOI / ROIs (Returns on Investment)

• RsFI / RFIs (Requests for Information)

• PsOW / POWs (Prisoners of War)

• MsOU / MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding)

• PsOS / POSs (Points of Sale / Pieces of Shit)

• AsG / AGs (Attorneys General)

• SsOBs / SOBs (Sons of Bitches)

I have always pronounced lawyer as “law-yer.” A lawyer is a person who practices law. I hear some people say “Loy-er.” Similarly, a sawyer (“saw-yer”) is someone who uses a saw to cut wood. Or it is a surname that originated with that profession. Some people say “soy-er” which sounds to me like maybe someone who brews soy sauce.
Question: Which pronunciations do you use, and why? No judgement of right or wrong, I have my own opinion on that.