What is the difference between "English" and "British"?
2011年12月17日 · A simple way to understand it, is to compare the UK to the USA. The USA is a country made up of states. Each state, with a different name. People can be New Yorkers or Californians and they are Americans. However, not all Americans are New Yorkers or Californians. For the UK, replace the word states, with the words "home nations".
phrases - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
The terms are all derived from the start of a foot race: "On your mark"/"Take your mark"/"Ready" - Get in your lanes, put your toes (or hands if using a starting block) on the line, and prepare to run/swim/skate/bike your butt off.
Speaking of insults: "sod off!" meaning and origin
2011年11月3日 · So your sense of "sod" is on the money. Suffixial "off" marks a general epithet as an insult, as seen in "piss off," "f-ck off," "bugger off," etc., all used in the manner of "please go away." Also note that "sod" in this sense is UK usage only. In US English it …
What is the origin of "rag" meaning newspaper?
2017年1月16日 · That being said, it is not hard to imagine that when choosing a word to express contempt for a piece of fabric or paper, such as a flag, newspaper, pamphlet, or legal document, rag would be an easy choice. In the case of paper, this is partly because of physical resemblance to fabric, and partly because rags were (and sometimes are) used to ...
Should there be a space before a percent sign?
2017年4月8日 · Stack Exchange Network. Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.
What's the equivalent phrase in the UK for "I plead the fifth"?
Edit: Kudos to @AndrewLeach for pointing out the well-known "right to remain silent" in police interrogations, which also exists in the UK and most places with a British-derived system of justice. I believe in general conversation "I'm exercising my right to remain silent" would be understood in much the same way as "I plead the fifth".
What’s the origin and history of the phrase “ten foot pole”?
2018年6月7日 · Early figurative use of "ten-foot pole" The earliest instance I could find of figurative use of "touch [someone or something] with a ten-foot pole" is from "Buying Up the Press," in the [Lawrenceburg] Indiana Palladium (September 22, 1832, reprinted from the Missilonn Gazette), which uses the phrase in a very modern-sounding way:
Plural of "staff" (stick) — "staffs" or "staves"? [closed]
In the UK staff(as a plural) or staves would be more common. The only time I've heard the word staffs used is as a common abbreviation of the county of Staffordshire so this could get very confusing. – user53561
What is the correct way to pluralize an acronym / initialism?
The crux of the problem is that SOS’s cannot serve as both a genitive singular and a nominative plural, because you then run into a brick wall trying to make a genitive plural: ****SOS’s’s*** or some such similar silliness simply doesn’t work.
grammar - When to use "me" or "myself"? - English Language
2011年4月9日 · George Bernard Shaw said that it only takes one Englishman to open his mouth for another to despise him. The misuse of "myself" where "me" is the correct choice, is what I call "estate agent grammar".