Help with English

As I said earlier, the Frisians do not have a country. There is a region called Frisia, but it consists of four administrative divisions of Germany (Ostfriesland and Nordfriesland) and the Netherlands (Friesland and Groningen). The Frisians were a Germanic tribe like the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc., during the early C.E. years. Their language was a dialect of Old German and therefore quite similar to Anglo-Saxon, the trans-Germanic dialect that developed in Britannia after the Roman Empire collapsed, the Roman Legionnaires went home, and the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other Germanic invaders sailed over to seize control of the former Roman province. During the subsequent centuries the language of the main part of Germany underwent significant phonetic changes, whereas the language of the Frisians did not. Therefore, modern Frisian is more similar to modern English than any other West Germanic language is (German, Yiddish and Dutch/Flemish).

No. "Hey" is an interjection of uncertain origin. Many languages have similar words, suggesting that it's a natural outburst of sound uttered to express surprise, get someone's attention, warn them of danger, etc.

"Hi" is also an interjection, a greeting, a colloquial substitute for "hello," which, itself, is not really very formal. The origin of "hi" is also uncertain but, ironically, it may be an alteration of "hey" which has developed a new meaning.

"Hello" comes from "hallo" or "hollo," from an Old German word meaning "fetch," which was used to get the attention of a ferryman. It was reinforced by similarity to French "ho-la," also used with ferrymen, meaning "whoa there!"

The reason "hey" and "hi" may be confusing to you is that these days, in America, people sometimes do use "hey" as a greeting. But this is very colloquial. It's primarily done by young people, and it's not considered polite. Come back in fifty years and we'll know if it catches on.

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Yes, the spelling "annexe" is unknown here.

I detect French influence since this word is of French origin. The verb is annexer and annexé is the past participle. Used as a noun, it means "something which has been annexed." So perhaps the Brits use the participial spelling when the word is used as a noun, even though they no longer pronounce the final E.

In the USA, the verb annex is used in a political context without the implication of force, at least not military force. If the residents of a small unincorporated area next to a large city would like to have the level of services that a city provides, they can petition the city to annex their area and make it part of the city.

People who live outside cities are under the jurisdiction of their county (called a "parish" in Louisiana). In many states, especially in the western part of the country, counties provide a much lower level of municipal service than cities, and therefore collect less money in taxes. Here in Maryland that's not true, and as a result there aren't very many cities: Montgomery County only has two and the people who live in unincorporated areas have great schools, parks, hospitals, twice-weekly trash pickup, police and fire protection, animal control, etc. In contrast, Los Angeles County in California has something like fifty cities, some of which have only a few hundred residents. People who live in its unincorporated areas may have to haul their own trash to the dump or hire a service.

 

"The blue" is short for "the blue sky." When we say that something "came out of the blue," that means that it appeared suddenly, with no warning and no obvious source.

As your dictionary says, for a light to "flicker" means that it is unreliable, flashing on and off so it's difficult to see exactly where it's coming from, or even if it's real or just an illusion. So a flicker of progress is a brief glimpse that looks like it might be a promise of progress, or it might be just an illusion. In recent decades, Burma has undergone several iterations of progress followed by relapses, so it's not easy to determine whether something that we see on one day (a flicker of progress) is going to continue into the next day, much less for the rest of the century.

You need to stop relying on your paper dictionary and use the much more complete and reliable online dictionary, like everybody else. Dictionary.com includes this definition of "duff":

verb (used with object) Slang.
1. to give a deliberately deceptive appearance to; misrepresent; fake.
2. British. (in golf) to misplay (a golf ball), especially to misjudge one's swing so that the club strikes the ground behind the ball before hitting it.
3. Australian. a. to steal (cattle), b. (formerly) to alter the brand on (stolen cattle).
4. to cheat someone.​

It doesn't seem that your dictionary includes a complete list of slang definitions. Based upon these listings, a duff loan would be a loan that is taken out dishonorably, with no intention to pay it back. By extension it could mean a loan that is taken out foolishly, by someone who probably doesn't have the resources to pay it back but is too stupid to realize it or too desperate to care.

Even here in the USA, the slang word "duffer" is understood to mean a person who plays golf poorly but keeps playing anyway, annoying his friends--or perhaps making them happy by betting on the game and always losing.

 

In New Zealand we use the term "Silly duffer" when comforting children who have, for example, injured themselves by doing something foolish, broken something, or gotten unreasonably upset over some event.

"Stop being a silly duffer and come and give me a hug."

In fact, I'm 99% certain I haven't heard used except when dealing with children, or describing pregnancy.

In New Zealand, at least, to be "Up the duff" is to be pregnant.

 

The term "thin air" is only used in this one metaphor. It refers to the atmosphere as a great void into which something can be blown far away in any direction, so it is lost forever. We also say "vanished into thin air." Air is specifically characterized as "thin" to make it clear that it offers no resistance to the trajectory of the lost object, idea, relationship, agreement, etc., so its escape will be swift and final.

That's pretty amusing, coming from someone who speaks Chinese! Why do you call a thing an "east-west," dong-xi?

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Why do you call "music" yin-yue--a metaphor which I still don't understand?

Some of your picturesque terms are pretty cute, like dian-ying, "electric shadows," for movie. But ji-qi-jiao-ta-che, "gas-engine-leg-pacing-wagon" for motorcycle is awkward.

These statements are formal and polite. But we also have slang terminology that is only used informally. We Americans wouldn't understand "up the duff"; we say "knocked up," which is very rude. A more acceptable term for polite company is "she has a bun in the oven."

In Victorian England (the reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901), the English people became very fussy about any words for sexuality and other bodily functions. That's why today we call teats "breasts" (when everyone, male and female, only has one breast) and the scrotum the "groin" (when everyone, male and female, has two groins) and even the "leg" of a chicken was replaced with "drumstick"--since a proper lady never showed her legs in public, not even their shape. So "pregnant" was a tabu word. The proper term was "she is with child." Even today we still use the Victorian term, "she is expecting," meaning "expecting a baby."

Today we say "pregnant" and "having a baby." But we still use our slang terms, and each anglophone country has a different set. In England, "knock up" means simply to knock on somebody's door, telling them it's time to leave; although that term has been laughed at so often by Americans that they don't use it too much any more. They now say "pick up" like we do.

 

Both get used fairly equally here. The conversation, in your instance, would probably go something along the lines of "She's up the Duff." "Huh?" "She's knocked up." Or in some cases, depending on the excitement levels of the person telling you, you might get "She's up the duff, knocked up."

 

See this post: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...robably-quot&p=3015102&viewfull=1#post3015102

 

Actually the preposition is not the biggest error in your sentence. As I have told you before, you absolutely MUST learn how to use the definite article ("the") and the indefinite article ("a/an") correctly. Without this accuracy, your writing will always be difficult to understand and easy to misinterpret.

So what you must say is "on an airplane" or "in an airplane." ("Aeroplane" is British English, not American.) Once you get the indefinite article into your sentence, the choice of preposition is actually not very important. Most people would say "on an airplane," but if you say "in an airplane" we will understand you completely and nobody will even think that's an odd choice of words.

When we are riding in a large vehicle for transportation, we usually say that we are on it, not in it.

• John can't come back home to pick up the briefcase he forgot. He is already on the train.
• Mary usually walks to work for exercise, but she was in a hurry so I suspect that she's on the bus today.
• I was on a ship last month, but my quarters were so far below the deck that I never saw the water.
• I can't cancel your order for the new lawnmower. It's on a truck headed toward your house.
• My trip to Costa Rica by boat was too slow and I kept getting seasick. So I came home on an airliner.

The exception to this rule is for very small vehicles. We always say "in the car," not on it. The same is true of any small aircraft, such as a helicopter or an airplane that only holds eight people.

For watercraft, sometimes we say "on board a ship" rather than just "on a ship." Professional sailors might say just "aboard ship."

Obviously if a vehicle has no inside, like a motorcycle, then you are "on it," never "in it."

No, it's much worse. The only kind of harassment that is punished severely is sexual harassment (making improper sexual remarks or even demanding sex) and even then the perpetrator might go home with a warning after paying a fine. Stalking is much more serious; it's a pattern of following someone consistently. It may be just a severe form of harassment, such as simply showing up everywhere the victim goes to make them feel afraid or simply annoyed, but often it's a way of determining the victim's behavior patterns in order to plan a rape, robbery, kidnapping, etc.

We use the term "stalking" on SciForums for a member who searches for another member's posts and then pops up in the same discussion with a rude, offensive or threatening remark. In some of these cases I think we'd be more accurate to call it "harassment" instead of "stalking."

"Black Friday" was originally used to describe a Friday on which a terrible disaster occurred, such as a riot, shipwreck or economic crisis. The police in Philadelphia used the term to describe the shopping day after Thanksgiving because it caused a major disruption of pedestrian and vehicle traffic, so from their perspective it was a terrible disaster. Despite the horrible connotation, the phrase has endured and is now universal throughout the USA.

It is the traditional American dinner for both Christmas and Thanksgiving. In my family we even served it on Easter.

I haven't bought a turkey since my wife became a vegetarian, but a turkey large enough to feed eight people probably costs $25. So $875m = 35m families. That sounds about right.

They're all raised in the USA. People don't realize that the USA is a major producer and exporter of food. Much of the western part of the country is wide-open unpopulated area where cattle and sheep graze freely. In California, for instance, even though it has a population of 35m, most of the land is farm, forest or desert. California has some absolutely gigantic turkey farms. America is the world's largest producer of corn ("maize") and we also grow a lot of rice, soybeans and sugar (both cane and beets).

The entire Western Hemisphere is very sparsely populated compared to the rest of the world, and there is lots of room to grow food. The USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile could feed every person on this planet so generously that they'd all become fat. Our governments and our charities send shiploads of food to the poor people of the Third World. Unfortunately their dictators confiscate the food and sell it on the black market so they can buy champagne, prostitutes and guns, and their people continue to starve.

I like turkey but chicken is more moist. You have to cook turkey slowly and carefully, and a lot of people just don't know how to do it right so it comes out dry and hard.

I've never cared for duck but goose is pretty good.

I don't think it's terribly popular anywhere outside the USA. It's a traditional American food, like hot dogs--which are made of pork or beef, not dog meat.

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