Are w o, w , b c common abbreviations in the US? I remember when staying a few months in the US years ago that I saw some people using the abbreviations below However, I can't exactly remember in which contexts I encountered them, (whether I saw
Proceed to doing something or Proceed to do something That is an interesting question, and I think the answer is that it depends In the example you provided, I think both phrases could be considered correct, though I would definitely prefer the second one, because it reads much more logically to me 'Now proceed to write on the paper' sounds like a command being given to someone in the present, telling them to begin the process of writing on the
Is it slough or slew? - English Language Usage Stack Exchange Which is the proper word to use to indicate a large amount of something - "slough" or "slew"? Eg: StackExchange now has a slough of potential new sites in Area51 English stackexchange com has a
Speak to vs. Speak with - English Language Usage Stack Exchange The OED’s first sense of “to speak with ——”, meaning “To converse with, talk to; to consult or confer with”, doesn’t seem restricted to North America Citations from English (and indeed, British) literature include authors such as Ælfric in Old English, Malory, Sir Walter Scott, and Tennyson, the lattermost being “Not for three years to speak with any men ” It hasn’t
expressions - Origin and meaning of You catch more flies with honey . . . I risk confusing the jadarnel with this aside, but a funny observation has been made that you actually attract more fruit flies with vinegar than honey, because the acetic acid in vinegar makes them think they sense fruit Of course, the point stands that you can get what you want done better with sweetness kindness rather than with a caustic attitude
word choice - In the hope of vs. with the hope of - English . . . Both are grammatical There seems to be little difference in meaning, but a detailed corpus search might show that they were used in different contexts What corpus evidence does show is that in the hope is more popular than with the hope It occurs nearly four times as much in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, and nearly eighteen times as much in the British National Corpus
What is the origin of shorthand for with - gt; w ? CyberDefinitions gives a plausible explanation: Although its origin is contested, w has been used at least since the rise of the fast-food industry in the 1950s As a form of shorthand to save time when writing down food orders, waiters replaced the words "with" and "without" with the abbreviations w and w o Since that time, the use of w as an abbreviation of "with" has become much more