r/ENGLISH

I typed this to a friend this morning, and then I sat and thought “huh, that’s a weird construction” (which I’d never pondered before until I started reading this sub). I know it’s part of my regional Southern US dialect, but I’ve lived abroad for many years and BBC’d my accent pretty hard, plus moved around all over when I was kid so my accents are blended and hodge-podge.

Question 1: Does this read more Tennessee/North Carolina Southern, more North Florida/Southern Georgia, or more Southern Texas Southern? I’m trying to place it in my mind where I picked this one up. It’s also possible I got this from my Northern Minnesota maternal family, so that’s in the mix as well.

Question 2: If you were non-Southern or non-native, would you know what I meant if you heard me say this? (It’s sort of like “I thought you could use something, maybe you don’t need it, but there is harm in sharing this.” It’s a positive statement.)

a question for native English speakers.

two phrases

1."This word is usually used as a way of saying goodbye "

2."Here this word is used as a way of saying goodbye "

are both "used" the same?

the first one means that people usually use that word

the second one also means that people use it here as...?

or it means that it has been used in this sentence as...

describing a current result/state

Like in sentence the door is closed

Algospeak is messing with my head. I try to avoid it, because I dislike the way algorithms and AI are affecting us.

If you're quoting the same author more than once in a sentence, do you need to cite every time you quote them or just once at the end of a sentence?

EX:

Arcade’s experience, as well as many others, was a result of a collective mindset among “control freaks in the gay community”(Arcade, 2019) that queer people had to be “accepted by the white middle class” (Arcade, 2019) in order to achieve more rights and protections.

OR

Arcade’s experience, as well as many others, was a result of a collective mindset among “control freaks in the gay community” that queer people had to be “accepted by the white middle class” in order to achieve more rights and protections (Arcade, 2019).

I saw an old post doing the same thing so I wanted to see how many people could correctly guess!

https://voca.ro/1bub1AVqjdm9

Interesting UK-ism I learnt today: "revising".

In the UK would you ever say you're "studying" for an exam/test or do you always say "revising"?

I learned about various meanings of 'go over'.

I think it can be used in these ways:

1-1. I had to go over this report again and again.
1-2. Please give me a feedback after you go over the poem I wrote.

2. You should go over these words faster until you go to home.

3. Don't fix the text on the poster. My boss and I've already gone over it.

4. Can you go over this process again? I couldn't catch it up.

How about you guys think the most common meaning of it?
And please let me know other examples I can use.

Can’t help but/can't help are common in spoken English?

While I was watching an anime I saw Can’t help but in meaning can't stop or control something

Like:”girls and boys alike can't help but fawn over him”

And in another show I saw can't help in meaning like “Andrew can't help what he is”

I'm wondering if those structures are used in the common speech or if it's something way too old and no one speaks like that 😩

In addition, what does fawn over mean

I was a Georgia boy, raised bout half an hour from Atlanta. For the LIFE of me I didn't know Atlanta had 2 ts. TWO!

Atlana. My entire life I thought it WAS Atlana. I was a whole ass adult and had a near Mandela effect moment. Ain't nobody say atlanTUH. Atlana or maybe Alana. I KNEW it "obviously" wasn't Alana but I genuinely thought it was Atlana.

I think it was sometime when I was early 20s in the Army when I found out.

I'm trying to understand whether this sentence sounds fully natural and native-like in modern English biographical or journalistic writing:

"Upon his return to China, he was entrusted to work at Jilin University as a full-time professor and chief scientist in a branch of China's biggest deep earth exploration program."

I'm not asking whether it's grammatically correct. What I'm really wondering is:

• Does "was entrusted to work at" sound idiomatic here?
• Would native speakers normally phrase this differently?
• Does the sentence read like something written by a native English writer, or does it carry a slightly translated / official / non-native tone?
• Would a native speaker immediately suspect that this sentence was written or translated by a non-native English speaker?

I'm especially interested in subtle stylistic or collocational issues rather than strict grammar.

(Day 5)
Today a new colleague came to our department. He isn't on my team but I had to have a lunch with him. I thougt it would be nice that he and I will be in good relationship.
In my company, there is a new cafe too. This new one is almost same with existing cafe. Because there are same menus which are same price with old one. But the new cafe gives people more convenience and that is why I decided to go there every morning.