don't know the lingo, but remember that some adjectives seem only able to be used right in front of the nouns.  i think it's ok to say "the weather is cold" and "it's a cold weather today" but can we use

In the movie Juno, Juno had a quarrel with her step mom Brenda about visiting Mark, the adoption parent. Brenda told her to "go fly a kite". What does that mean? Thanks

Thanks, grammar geek. I was discussing the recent financial crisis and it came to my mind the expression of "taking a/the hxt". At the time I was not sure whether the correct expression was "heat" or "hit". From your

in the dictionary, "take the heat" is explained as "endure censure or criticism". I wonder if the same idiom can be used to mean "to endure hardship". Or if we should use other non-idiomatic expression like "take

i wonder if tongue-in-cheek is the same as " :P " (smiley). or can someone explain to me why (the origin) tongue-in-cheek means humerous/facetious ? thanks a lot

Thanks for the explanation. But isn't it also common to say "are you a native speaker? who is a native speaker? I am a native speaker" in all of which "native" modifies "speaker".

My friend, a native speaker, insisted that most native speakers would think that 99% of the time a person who uses "de-emphasize" in his sentence means "not to emphasize". I am puzzled. I agree with what Avi said, and

I sincerely apologize for posting this question. I believe this has been posted before, but somehow the forum does not seem to support keyword-searching anymore. I googled the two terms, and found that both are used in books. I recalled back in

I thought the following two sentences means two (slightly) different things, but got into a heated discussion with a friend who insisted that they are the same. "Obama de-emphasized in his campaign that race was an issue" "Obama did

don't take my word for it. wait for other people's response. i often make mistakes in understanding these sentences