Questions tagged [phrase-usage]
This tag is for questions about how to use a particular phrase. If your question is a request for a phrase to use, you should use the "phrase-request" tag.
4,056 questions
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Is it correct to say "click the watercolor pen in its place"?
My daughter has a plastic box of watercolor pens. There are several slots in the box. After using the pens, you can secure them by putting them into the slots.
When pushing a pen in the slot, it ...
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Is it correct to say "draft book" to refer to a book for writing informal information?
My 7-year-old daughter's main exercise book has the question "13-7= ".
She has to write down the result of the subtraction after the "=".
What she learns is that she has to split 7 ...
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Is it correct English to say "she is at her school break"?
A child has a period of 1 week or 2 weeks of not going to school. This is not a long summer vacation (like a few months). Is it natural or common English to say "she is at her school break"?
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Is it correct to say "a drum is beating"?
The verb "beat" means "to hit something hard several times", it is both intransitive and transitive.
For example, "Somebody was beating at the door" and "Someone was ...
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I thought that my employees' attitude to him would be different than if he were a regular newbie
Source: my example
I really wanted my son to work for me at our family company. Eventually, I abandoned this idea because I thought that my employees' attitude toward him would be different than if ...
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Insufficient: "insufficient for doing something" VS "insufficient in doing something"
Oxford Dictionary states that the adjective "insufficient" has the following patterns:
insufficient to do something -> His salary is insufficient to meet his needs.
insufficient for ...
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Is it natural to say "he just won a pity cup"?
A famous football player had taken part in several tournaments but hadn't won any trophy.
Now he was taking part in an important one and the management of the tournaments felt sorry for him and asked ...
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is the length of a book the distance from its top to bottom?
This is a book.
Is the book "2 dm in length by 1 dm in width" or "1 dm in length by 2 dm in width"?
When an object is in its correct position, we can identify the top and the ...
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is it natural to use "grow up" when you refer to a child developing to the age of 10 or 12 or at the age of less than 18?
In Oxford Learner's Dictionary, "to grow up" means "to develop into an adult".
But say my child is just 4 now and can not watch scary movies. When he is about 10, I will let him ...
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Can I use the phrase 'in part' to say I'm partially quoting a bible verse within a sentence?
Can I introduce a part of something I'm quoting by saying for example:
I didn't like it, in fact it's quoted here, in part: "... She stood with her head erect and shoulders tilted back... "
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Is it correct to say "I took a scan of my face" or "I took my facial scan" the same way we say "I took a picture of myself" or "I took my picture"?
Britannica.com say
scan: a picture of the inside of something that is made by a
special machine
The doctor examined the bone scans.
and I also found this sentence "The doctors took a scan of ...
- 26.6k
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Can we say "the ladder is leaning against the wall" to express a dynamic action?
1- "lean" is intransitive.
Normally, "the ladder is leaning against the wall" expresses a state is static. It already in its final position, touching the wall at an angle.
But say, ...
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With one quick motion, she "reached to" vs "reached" the stitching at the neck of her dress and undid her work
They are all from Corpus of Contemporary American English:
Ineffable Christmas, 37221
This door was open, and as he looked through he saw the demon huddled
in bed under a mound of blankets that ...
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List of documents which can "prove a level of B2" vs "prove/confirm B2 level"
I found this pdf-document at this link.
Title: List of documents which can prove a level of B2 English for conditional admission
Do native speakers use "prove a level of B2"? I've never ...
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Is my interpretation of the following phrases correct: modes/forms/means/types/kinds transport/travel?
Difference 1:
Group 1: Modes/forms of transport: (planes, ships, cars, trains,...) (more likely to refer to the distinction among air/sea/road/... travel)
Group 2: Means/types/kinds of transport: ...
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