Questions tagged [discussion]
The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.
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What do you think is the best dictionary with synonyms?
What do you think is the best dictionary with synonyms? I occasionally use https://metanery.com, but I would like to combine dictionaries for my work.
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Is the OED now available for free online?
https://www.oed.com/
seems to be totally free. Is there a catch like "you have used all you free searches" after which the website asks for a subscription?
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do spite downvoters realize they are practicing censorship?
It feels good to express spite through downvotes - but the algorithm behind SE would stop posts from users who receive a lot of downvotes.
Express constructive criticism and spite through comments ...
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What do you think about using ChatGPT and AI features to learn English? Is it trustable 100%?
I'm using it all the time and I'm afraid of it. If you're against using it that much. Tell me what can I do instead (I've got no teachers in real life).
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Answer on "Ism" question possibly wrongly bot-flagged and deleted
Question on English.SE: Ists and anti-ists
Bot-deleted answer:
https://english.stackexchange.com/a/624896/142322
The question was about -isms, a construct which can be associated with polemics. ...
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What can I do to improve my questions that my questions will be accepted again (regrettably I have got the question ban)?
I don't know what to do. The question ban has come all of a sudden - there was no warning or admonishment. When I look at my questions there is hardly any possibility to fix them. The last 6 questions ...
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On average when is it a good idea to reopen a question?
in average? on average?
Does the community think it a good idea to reopen a ten-year-old question for the following reasons?
It has been viewed 152k times which tells us the dilemma of choosing ...
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Why have I got a question ban?
I'm asking questions on this site and I haven't got any admonishments or warnings up to now. All of a sudden I have got this question ban. I would like to know the reasons of this procedure.
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Why are questions summarily locked?
The questioner wanted to know about this syntax:
The sentence is: "Could we have found a buyer who would continue operations, I would have certainly preferred to sell the business rather than ...
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Can I download / buy Cambridge English Corpus / Cambridge Learner Corpus? Where to download these corpus?
I seen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_English_Corpus .
Can I download / buy Cambridge English Corpus / Cambridge Learner Corpus? Where to download these corpus?
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Why was this question downvoted and who downvoted it?
Why was this question downvoted and who downvoted it? I don't understand the reason of downvoting this question. And I can't read the name of the user who downvoted (too small reputation score I think)...
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Book of literary genres and character types?
Saw a writer interviewed once and he talked about having a well known reference book that delineates story genres and fundamental character types.
Unfortunately, I neglected to write down the title. ...
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"I'm against this question primarily because of the username and icon"
Is this type of racism and bigotry allowed here?
Why is “cold X” a bad thing and “hot X” a good thing in English?
I'm against this question primarily because of the username and icon, but it's ...
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Etymology - Specifically for medical science and/or adjacent studies
I absolutely love recommending the study resource "Etymonline" to students seeking to build their vocabularies in topics with very old and eclectic dictionaries, like medicine.
However, the ...
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Are questions about APA formatting on-topic?
I have a question relating to the proper formatting for multi-paragraph block quotes under APA-7. This would appear to fall under "usage", but I know that StackExchange communities tend to ...
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Is there a comprehensive grammar of British English from the early twentieth century that you recommend?
I am a native English speaker and I would like to read an old-fashioned grammar of British English: one that is prescriptive, one that predates generative linguistics
I have been enjoying "The ...
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How can we know what dictionary an entry on Dictionary.com is from?
Dictionary.com just got a lot worse. For example, looking up helium gives you entries from four dictionaries, labeled "American", "British", "Scientific", and "...
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We should not be pasting definitions from online dictionaries into answers when their terms of service prohibit such use
Some online dictionaries prohibit such copying of their content. Some examples below (not meant to be an exhaustive list, and any bolding for emphasis is mine) :
First, from the Stack Exchange terms ...
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Is requesting a English word or saying back to its native language on-topic?
Currently my understanding is that is completely on-topic to request a translation of a non-English word or phrase to an equivalent word or phrase in English; e.g, single-word-requests,idiom-requests.
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What are the highest quality textbooks for learning English grammar? [duplicate]
I am a native English speaker, but I think my grasp of grammar is too weak. So, I want to know what textbooks or reference books others deem worthy of using to deepen and broaden their understanding ...
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Does the community think that we need a 'grammar, but too basic for ELU: almost any book on grammar will answer this clearly' close-vote reason?
A recent question on ELU:
Is a noun always preceded by a determiner?
I believe that this is so easily answered by looking at virtually any book on grammar (it could be argued that even dictionaries ...
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The Reader Over Your Shoulder by Robert Graves
Does anyone know if there is a contemporary book that explores style in a similar way to The Reader Over Your Shoulder?
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Problematic migrations to ELL (an ongoing thing)
Why does ELU keep migrating this type of question? Are they too cowardly to close them?
A recurrent issue on ELL. It's like we are the poor relation that can have the awful questions dumped on us.
See ...
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2023: a year in moderation
It’s that time of the year again! As we wave goodbye to last year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here might be ...
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How to find particular topics in CGEL?
How can I find a topic I have a question about in CGEL? I often have problems but can't find the topic when I go to CGEL. Is there any better way to deal with a problem like this? How do you search in ...
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Stack Exchange cannot be excluded from the sociocultural evolution of language, correct?
Being a long-evolved language, missing definitions are rare within English. Nevertheless, meanings are sometimes missing, resulting in the formation of new words to fill those gaps. This occurs ...
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'Answerable by a dictionary' unsuitable for grammar questions
In a very welcome post, long overdue:
Replacing our "research" close reason: Final review
... one of the new close-vote reasons is given as "answerable by a dictionary."
Now, if ...
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What's off-topic about the question regarding the history of a slur?
The question When did Western newspapers stop using the term “Japs” in their publications? was asked yesterday and has really been riding the closure-rollercoaster:
Expanded details:
The first time, ...
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Thank you, Professor Lawler and Rest in Peace!
I am saddened to announce the passing of John Lawler on Saturday November 25. Many of us here were friends with him, and countless more helped by his answers. For those of you who aren't familiar with ...
LaurelMod
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Are we being encouraged to answer very old questions, or are they just being made more visually pleasing?
Some time ago, perhaps still, new answers to old questions were put under review (in a review queue), as if to imply: 'This question has been addressed, at length; what could possibly be the value-add ...
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Collection of English sentence-level grammar rules as semi-structured "data"?
I am looking for structured data of English grammar, however much might have been done. Specifically sentence-level grammar (as opposed to word morphology rules, though finding structured data for ...
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May I speculate in comments?
The question What does "make the Iacke go" mean? has received four answers, all of which propose theories as to what the phrase means. Under it are also some comments that, to me, raise an ...
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Can we reopen the question "Which format is most common for representing a number range in U.S. punctuation style and in British punctuation style?"
I have edited the question Which format is most common for representing a number range in U.S. punctuation style and in British punctuation style? so that it now asks a factual question about whether ...
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Recommend the best book for articles [duplicate]
Can you recommend the best book on English grammar articles?
The indefinite and definite articles a, an, and the?
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What resources to use for understanding archaic English usage?
I am reading the book "The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood" by James Gleick. Every now and then an old/archaic English sentence, from some reference, is quoted in this text.
How ...
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How can it be true that this site works by popular vote when no one can vote until they get to a certain reputation?
How can it be true that this site works by popular vote when no one can vote until they get to a certain reputation?
The statement is not accurate. I saw a very inaccurate meaning of a gesture that ...
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Should "Is a comma splice always a mistake?" be reopened as the face of two merged questions (both of which are now closed)?
The question "Is a comma splice always a mistake?" on the main site was merged (on July 3, 2023) with the question "Why is the comma splice an error?" also on the main site, as ...
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Problem with the "Closed" message?
Part of the "Closed" message is shown below, followed by a current example.
Change the sentence "I don't know you" into a compound sentence
In my opinion "... and clarify ...
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When are commas optional?
In revising a 1953 manuscript in which the author (a non-native speaker, a professor, quite proficient in English yet with a few lingering idiosyncrasies) and the original editor (OUP, New York branch,...
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Why do my questions on the etymology of idioms get closed, yet this one was accepted?: What is the origin of "out of sight" or "outa sight" i?
Every question I have asked about the etymology of an idiom gets pulled. Yet I found this one that stayed up. It's espcially irritating because sometimes before my question gets closed, I have ...
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Where can I locate dictionaries or resources that provide explicit markings for silent letters in words?
As someone who speaks English as a non-native language, one thing that often perplexes me is determining when to disregard silent letters in pronunciation. Although it doesn't completely hinder me, it ...
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Why was my question locked after edition?
Recently, I asked a question. Another user edited it a little. But now I see it's locked for about one hour. Why did it happen? Did I do a bad thing to deserve it?
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Replacing our "research" close reason: Completed
Update: Closing remarks
The phrasing I suggested in an answer below is now live:
Background
We have a massive problem with close votes. There's no sense in placing blame — we've been on this path ...
LaurelMod
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Should there be an increasing number of close votes required to re-close a question that has been reopened?
This question was closed with three votes for "insufficient research" - although I'm unclear why, because even after doing all the "research" suggested in the answers, the correct ...
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What research is required over common knowledge words?
For this question, it was closed due to a lack of research. Seems like an arbitrary reason to close, especially when no comment is given for what type of research is lacking. I think most word usage ...
user486316
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List of phrasal verbs by approximate usage frequency?
I have found two sources of lists of phrasal verbs in English: Textbooks for people learning English as a second language introduce a few of them every now and then, and dictionaries of phrasal verbs ...
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Why is my question about the etymology of "foundation" off-topic?
This question of mine got closed as off-topic, in spite of receiving way more upvotes than downvotes and also receiving a detailed answer. Why did it get closed?
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Which books should I refer to in my master's thesis about parallelism? [closed]
What books should I read for my thesis about parallelism in rhetorical devices?
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Is there already a NL model, like Chat GPT or something, that is reliable to use for verb tense structure?
I'm trying to build a schematic table/diagram with all the possible combinations of:
verb tenses (Past Simple to Conditional 3)
form (Affirmative to Interrogative Negative)
auxiliary verb conjugation ...
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Is the "second" ("secondary") definition any less the definition than the first one? What do you call this?
I submitted a research paper where I defined a word according to the definition provided by Oxford English Dictionary. The word has multiple definitions; this one actually has "1," "2....
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