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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How many unique four-letter words are in the English language that fall within the major word classes?
To better clarify: I would like to find some way (be it just the raw information itself in a pastebin, a dictionary crawler, a website search function, or something else) to determine how many words ...
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How does one assess the authoritativeness of a dictionary?
I am trying to find the most authoritative English dictionary that is both online and freely accessible. The OED is (controversially?) considered by many to be the most authoritative of the (British) ...
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The comma dilemma
Every day there is at least one question about the use of commas.
A quick search gives 40 pages of questions about how commas should be used.
What’s up with commas? Why is the use of commas (...
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Can we keep the previous green on English SE?
They are already quarrelling on meta about the accepted answer box getting a darker green. It looks especially disagreeable on ELU against the beige... I find it even annoying, but this is probably ...
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Where have profile views figures gone, and why?
The number of profile views that a member had used to be given on a members profile page. Has this information now just disappeared? If so, why?
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English tense reporting tool online
Is there any online tool available that just reports the tense of the English sentence. I'm just checking the scope of the project.I've seen lot of online tool that they are correcting and rewriting ...
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Are Oxford Dictionaries available online now that Lexico is dead?
There was once a website oxforddictionaries.com that provided merged contents of ODE (Oxford Dictionary of English) and NOAD (New Oxford American Dictionary), along with some grammar tips etc.
Then it ...
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Finding synonymous alliterations
Any recommendations on an online alliteration generator that searches through synonyms of two (or more) given words? That seems to have been how Something of something alliteration generator worked, ...
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Is there a some kind of decision tree to detect accent/dialect of British English?
Recently I started to notice how diverse English pronunciation in my YouTube subscribes become and I started wondering is there an easy way to detect which dialect is which since I am no linguist. ...
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"Lexico" will be gone in less than a month
Not sure what the implications for our site will be, but it seems relevant news that Lexico (formerly "Oxford Living Dictionaries", formerly "Oxford Dictionaries Online") is ...
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Is "There is no answer" an acceptable answer?
I am of the opinion that there is no (unique) answer to the question below. Essentially, the PO asks what the last person in a roll-call says. Clearly, many answers could be given, all depending on ...
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Tag solution by voting (tag merge, rename or remove): [terminology] vs. [vocabulary] vs. [technical]
I believe there is ambiguity (and confusion) regarding the meaning and the usage of these tags; and a considerable overlap as well: terminology, vocabulary, technical.
Current tag infos:
terminology ...
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Should we add more abbreviations to "the list"?
Background:
A recent question used the abbreviations "NP" (noun phrase) and "AP" (adjective phrase) without expansion. A commenter objected, recommending that such abbreviations ...
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Why has my question been closed as "Opinion Based"?
Why has this question been closed as “opinion based”? What did I put in the question that is making it an opinion?
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Do Q&A sites fit the definition of a forum?
I've been in multiple debates on what a forum is and if a Q&A site like this one is a forum, so I'm trying to get a real world definition.
The below various actual definitions of "forum" ...
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Canonical post tag?
I am pretty sure this site does not have this tag. Why though? ELL has this tag, in which a person can post a canonical post intended as a reference for questioners.
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An English dictionary that lists examples of the word used throughout history
In my language, there's a dictionary that for each word not only defines it, but gives multiple examples of usage from actual newspapers, books, etc. The best thing about it, is that it usually ...
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"Why don't we close these duplicates?" vs "Why do we not close these duplicates?" vs "Why do not we close these questions as duplicates?"
I found a bunch of questions about these grammatical formulations:
"Why don't we close these duplicates?" (Negated question using a contraction)
"Why do we not close these duplicates?&...
LaurelMod
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Dictionaries that do a good job explaining nuances in how words are used [duplicate]
I find dictionaries tend to provide definitions that are too general and don't cut to the heart of how words are distinctly used. Is there a dictionary that does a better job defining words or ...
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Online collocations search engine? [duplicate]
What's the best collocations search website you've used?
I recall there being one associated with Oxford but can no longer find it. It returned results from classical and modern English sources, ...
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What is the recourse when mods delete comments without notice?
This question had a score of 3 before someone initiated a 'close vote' followed by the score being reduced to 0. I posted in comments asking the people who did it (both the close vote and downvote) to ...
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Prescriptivist versus descriptivist?
On this site, particularly if mine is to be the first answer, I believe it is the accepted approach for me to supply an answer to a question in as much detail as I can muster, for example: a) this ...
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If the question is worth answering, it is worth upvoting
Just a gentle reminder to all users/contributors here...
I have said this a number of times in comment on the main, but as basic netiquette, if a question post is worth your time to do the research ...
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Mnemonics should be considered "Usage" instead of "Opinion"
It takes time and effort to create a good mnemonic. There is usage involved with respect to vocabulary and sentence formation where one needs to keep the words other than the necessary ones at a ...
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Website that identifies different sentence types
I am trying to find a website that I used a while ago that identified different sentence types. You paste the text into the text box and then through a selection of buttons on the right, you could ...
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Do the moderators of the site monitor and attempt to bring consistency among voting behaviour of contributors?
I have compiled some stats concerning a few regular contributors to the site and have discovered a huge variation in the frequency with which they up-vote, and also down-vote other's contributions. ...
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Can my answer ban please be lifted?
I last answered over a year ago, and I've recently returned to the site as I want to help and share my knowledge of the English language. However, I still can't answer.
I understand that some of my ...
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Vote to close plus an answer
The post that highlights this is When is "sex" sex, and when is it "gender"?
I both voted to close and answered the question (apparently not my finest answer).
This is not the ...
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What is wrong with a discussion of opinion?
The question I raised here has already suffered one vote to close - for being "opinion based".
Does not "opinion" lie at the heart of the way language develops? There seems to me a ...
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Feature Request: Answer/User tags
From time time to time I take a break from this site, and in one of those more-recent breaks, I 'discovered' Reddit.
After a couple of months, and one unjustified ban, I came to the realization that ...
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Why was a helpful comment removed?
I posted a comment under the following question giving , I presume, some helpful indications on the subject asked by the OP (clearly a new user).
The question was off-topic for a number of reasons, ...
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Wasn't your issue with so called "opinion based" question opinion based?
I have a question about my English Language & Usage Stack Exchange post: Punctuation rule in U.S. English
My post wasn't by any means opinion-based. How it is different from questions about "...
user450634
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What should ELU's criteria be for removing a question from the HNQ list?
In the announcement of changes to the Hot Network Questions list (HNQ), it says:
We're putting the power in the hands of our moderators to remove questions that don't set a good example for their ...
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Why was this question removed from the HNQ list?
I would like to know why What is the origin of "playing into someone's hands"? was removed from the HNQ1 list. According to the guidance given in this post
In general, we recommend that ...
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Does self-deletion of a comment flagged as 'unkind' lock in the flag?
Quite some time ago, a hi-rep user told me in a comment on meta that self-deletion of a comment on the main which has already been flagged as "unfriendly or unkind" will lock in that flag, ...
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2022 Community Moderator Election Results
Moderator election #6 on English Language & Usage has come to a close, the votes have been tallied, and the new moderators are:
They will be joining the existing crew shortly — please thank them ...
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Worth noting: “Staging Ground” coming to Stack Overflow
SO is initiating the trial of a new feature, the “Staging Ground”.
This effectively acts as a review process that occurs before a question asked by a new user appears on the main page. It’s something ...
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If I am NOT running for Mod, but would like to state my personal platform
Recently, Meta has become a little confusing for me...
We have Mod elections, and Question collection, but if I am not actively seeking election yet would still like to post my opinion vis a vis site ...
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How can I get my candidate score, as in Mod elections
See any election page.
Out of curiosity, is this an HTML thing?
...or is this a function of Flair?
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Why are "Questions that can be answered using commonly-available references..." off-topic?
I recently had a question closed for lack of research/ answers being in "commonly-available references".
My question is, why is this considered a good reason to close a question? Surely, the ...
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WD-40 pronunciation question treated badly
We had a potentially interesting question based on pronunciation of a common house-hold chemical....
The question was quickly shoved off without much ado to the closed questions queue and closed..
It ...
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Why I enjoy EL&U users more than dictionaries [closed]
I need to share my heart. Maybe this is a therapy post, but I really mean it.
I don't like Dictionary-only answers
I don't want to single out any users as examples, because that's not my point.
I want ...
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This community should include opinion and subjects which fall under creative English
Creative English and public opinion is a part of English and of communication.
If you do not allow for such communication on this site, you will soon become irrelevant and ineffective as happens to ...
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2022 Community Moderator Election
The 2022 Community Moderator Election is now underway!
Community moderator elections have three phases:
Nomination phase
Primary phase
Election phase
Most elections take between two and three weeks, ...
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Can you recommend some books on recreational wordplay, like Alphabet Avenue? [closed]
So far, I have found these:
The Game of Words by Espy
Alphabet Avenue
The Dictionary of wordplay by Dave Morice
Are there other books like these? Not necessarily in English, other languages (French, ...
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2022 Moderator Election Q&A – Question Collection
The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it here.
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is scheduled for an ...
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Can I get my question reopened please?
My question: In English, are trains female? has been closed due to apparently being a duplicate of What is the gender of an aircraft?
Obviously, aircraft and trains are not the same thing, and my ...
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How to stop links in comments taking up the entire character allowance
I don't know if this has happened to you, but I find it excruciatingly annoying when, in a relatively short comment, a link I've included takes up a hundred or even two hundred characters, thereby ...
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How can I edit my question that was closed as opinion based?
I asked the question Mnemonic for the planets in Indian English about back in 2020. The question has been closed as opinion-based after less than 2 years. However, I need to ask something about this &...
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Why is my question about "aboot" locked? [duplicate]
Are Canadianisms like "aboot" equally common on the American side of the border, adjacent to it?
I understand that people can still answer it, but at first glance it looks like there is some ...
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