The English Oracle

Videos

capitals or not for "open source"?

4K

Noun for "send"?

14.6K

What does "gan" mean in "White thy fambles, red thy gan And thy quarrons dainty is."

2.7K

What do you call someone or a group of people who split off from a main group?

9.2K

Compound Adjectives and -ed

14.7K

"Wait on" vs "wait for"

242K

Proper pronunciation of ordinal numbers?

2K

to invest: can you invest in luxury items that you know will lose value?

390

To make something opaque = opaquen?

5.4K

Is there a synonym for "centerfold" which doesn't also mean "scantily clad woman?"

1.4K

What would you write in this case? (a sign in a fitting room)

391

What is the best way of conveying respect to elders in English?

5.9K

Are there shibboleths specific to native Russian speakers?

4.3K

When did "Easter egg" begin to mean "hidden feature"?

3.4K

What is the purpose of using the word "why" in "why, thank you"?

353.3K

What is a trope, and how does it differ from a metaphor?

48.8K

Is there a difference between "holiday" and "vacation"?

212.5K

Should broader types be capitalized?

38.5K

Why is "dingbat" used to refer to characters like "☺"?

2.5K

A term or phrase for speaking as clearly as possible to non-experts

2K

Inversion or fronting with "so"

1.5K

When describing a detail of an ex, is it correct to use past or present tense?

5.2K

When is Christmas Eve Eve?

25.2K

What's the difference between "I look forward to" and "I'm looking forward to"?

922.4K

Why does one run around like a blue-arsed fly?

48.8K

What is a verb that means "to be said by a computer/machine"?

4K

"Which Allow me" or "Which Allows me"?

71.6K

Why is 'forty' spelled without a 'u' in Canadian/British English?

52.3K

Why are some words combined into a single word while others stay as two words?

3.6K

A verb for “The cartographer painstakingly ___ a map of the city.”

13.5K

Placement of comma before quotation mark

136.6K

"Had better" — what is the meaning of this grammatically?

55.5K

What is an alternative to "Bless you" after sneezing?

13.8K

Where did “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” originate?

52.4K

How did "at once" get to be used to mean "immediately"?

3.1K

Is 'worse' the only comparative that has neither -er nor more?

444

Is this use of 'chuse' a spelling mistake, a digitization error or the correct spelling for the time?

6.8K

Is there an adjectival form of Jubilee?

2.7K

Should computer game screens show "you lose" or "you lost"?

16.4K

Is there a name for these long, snaky paint drips?

3.2K

What was Ꝧ (thorn with stroke through descender) used for in middle/old english?

1.9K

What's the point of omitting the "e", as in "sceptered" going to "scepter'd", in English poetry?

695

Antonym of "suspend" as in "Suspend a user account"

9.6K

Is “harebrain” used commonly as a verb or adjective?

1.2K

American Equivalent of "Bog Standard"

3.1K

What does "guinea" mean here?

5.6K

Word for a Person Skilled in Handicraft

8.4K

What is the radical difference between ‘this’ and ‘a’ when telling a story?

483

How did "perfidy" come to mean the absence of faithfulness / trust?

1.1K

Is using "wish" like this exclusive to India? “Did you wish her?”

3.1K