Star Dictionary and English

Here is a link to Star Dictionary, which runs on Windows, Linux or Mac. Available for Star Dictionary are some good resources for students of English as a foreign language.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
43052 words

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
34153 words

Merrian Webster 10th dictionary
20517 words

The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
24402 words

English Thesaurus
20003 words

CMU American English spelling
105626 words

The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary
127012 words

English irregular forms
4690 words

English Etymology
18380 words

Oxford English Collocation Dictionary
8338 words


Enjoy!

Really? or Really!

The placement of the adverb can affect not only the actual meaning, but the mood as well. It can convey important information about the feelings of the speaker or about the relationship between the speaker and someone else. Really is one of the most obvious adverbs used like this.

I don't know whether she really saw it, but...
I don't know whether she saw it really, but...

In the first instance we are emphasizing the aspect of actuality with regards to the woman seeing it. Furthermore, the speaker is conveying the feeling of uncertainty that he has about whether she did see it herself or possibly only heard about it and passed on the information.

In the second instance we are emphasizing incredulity. The speaker does not believe the woman saw it. However, there is a feeling of contrast. The speaker is admitting that he had indicated his belief that she had seen it, on some level, and now wants to set things straight. This may be in any degree from outright correction to mere indueno.

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Brand names for proper nouns - American English

In American English we have substituted brand names for many proper nouns. Here is a brief list off the top of my head:

• kleenex (tissue)
• vaseline (petroleum jelly)
• band-aid (adhesive bandage [plaster in BrE])
• kool-aid (a children's sugary fruit juice)
• q-tips (swabs / cotton buds)
• cornflakes (There is no other real name to distinguish it from other cold cereals.)
• coke (cola)
• jello (gelatin)
• kitty litter (the gravel used in a cat's litter box that absorbs the odor)
• muzak (music piped into a store to effect customers' moods)
• scotch tape (clear, light-weight tape)
• xerox (a photocopy)
• crayons (wax pencils, used especially by little children for coloring)
• saran wrap (plastic food wrap)
• post-it (the little sticky notes)
• white-out (liquid mistake eraser)
• crockpot (an electric cooking vessel)
• jacuzzi (tub with jets)
• zip-loc (plastic storage bag that zips closed)
• chapstick (lip balm in a lipstick shape and dispenser)
• windex (liquid glass cleaner)
• aspirin (Bayer came up with the name Aspirin - from the 'A" in acetyl chloride, the "spir" in spiraea ulmaria (the plant they derived the salicylic acid from) and the 'in' was a common suffix for medicines.)
• frisbee (a plastic disc thrown like a flying saucer for play)
• thermos (an airtight container to keep liquids hot while at work or traveling)

Notice that we capitalize these if they refer to the actual brand or if they stand at the beginning of a sentence, of course. Otherwise, when they refer to the category of item they are decapitalized.

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As Big vs. Bigger

A colleague brought to my attention these two sentences:

• Your house is three times as big as mine.
• Your house is three times bigger than mine.

He asked what the difference was and whether one was incorrect or not. I told him that they were both fine, but that the former has a feeling of competition, while the latter anywhere from an objective to a humble feeling.

This doesn't work though with other similar constructions. When you say, "Your house is as big as mine" you are making your house the reference and indicating that his house may be the same size, but that there is likely something else inferior. So there is a feeling of pride involved now. Yet, when you say, "Your house is bigger than mine" you are making a different statement altogether and it has the same feelings as it did when the comparison was three times the size.

Answer to the 2nd 'Both' quiz

• It's both of our form of entertainment.
• It's both of our forms of emtertainment.

Both refers to a pair. So when we say form of entertainment, we mean only one type. Both cannot refer to the type(s) of entertainment, since there is only one. Therefore, "It's both of our form of entertainment." means that the type of entertainment is what each you and I prefer. Our cannot in this case refer to more than two people, if the sentence is grammatically correct, since both restricts it to two people.

The second one, "It's both of our forms of emtertainment," is a mistake. It refers to one thing, whereas, they refers to more than one. While both still may refer to the two of us, forms cannot compliment it. Forms is plural and it is singular. They cannot refer to the same thing.

Oh no! Another quiz!

Here is another one of those 'stop-and-think-about-it' comparisons.

• It's both of our form of entertainment.
• It's both of our forms of emtertainment.

When do you use each of these? Is one correct and the other incorrect? Do they refer to singular and multiple forms of entertainment? Do they refer to entertainment for one group as opposed to multiple groups of people? Does both refer to us in the first one and to forms of entertainment in the second (meaning there are only two forms of entertainment in the second)?

Make a guess and I'll tell in the next post. ;-)