The Dude abides — what does abide mean in that context? A discussion on Reddit of what "the Dude abides" means has some consensus that it's an Intentionally vague phrase hinting at the fact that The Dude Lives, in his unperturbable state of dudeness, somewhere
What is backshifting, as applied to English grammar? Should we call that backshifting? Perhaps so, although it is a bit different in a way Your second example is a conditional sentence with the actual condition left out, but, when you supply e g "if I could", it abides by the rule
What is the etymology of the term “Bumfiddler”? I heard about about the term ' bumfiddler ' from a E-Newsletter I receive, and I was wondering the etymology of this term? Is it a purely sexual phrase, or does it have a more mainstream normal usage? This website seems to define it as: Noun: - A busybody fidgety person Is, or should I say, was this a real used word?
Can I use the ll contraction with proper names? "Grammatically correct" means that "it abides by the rules of the English language" For example, a sentence such as "Clock it'd when pierce" is grammatically incorrect, while "My name is Panda" is grammatically correct
punctuation - Is it ever correct to have a space before a question or . . . It's a common typo by French (because in French, there is a white space before a question exclamation mark) and Indians (because I have no idea why and would like to know myself) In English, there is traditionally no white space In online context, it would be especially perilous, because most people don't know about nbsp; and or have no control over the actual HTML source code, and you don
Both the first and the last [plural] vs. both the first and the last . . . The last two examples only muddle the water "The first three places" is plural, yes But so is "the first two places" (Cf the first sentence of this very comment ) It has nothing to do with two vs three, and everything to do with the sentence structure being completely different from "first and second place both get a medal", where you only notice that place is singular yet fail to realize
What word describes: a person who always follows the rules? I'm looking for a word that describes a person who strictly follows a set of rules without exception Something close to obeyer or fanatic, but with an emphasis on 'Strictly following the rules'
People can ‘abide by’ the law, but can the law ‘abide people’? The "core" sense of abide is much bound up with wait (for a thing), withstand, sustain maintain" But one specific and relatively common sense today is to suffer, tolerate Here are dozens of written instances of [Nature] cannot abide a vacuum where that meaning is applied metaphorically I therefore don't see any problem with, for example, There are some citizens the law can abide Others