I hope you know what a noodle is. If it gets wet, it loses its regidity completely. If you are lashed with a wet noodle, you will not feel painful or get hurt at all. So, the expression means a punishment only in name. A bit severer punishment

Here is my humble opinion. In standard English 'different from' is preferred to 'different than.' Good writers suggest using the former in formal writing. In reality, however, 'different than' is often used. I personally label it as

Broadly speaking, 'of' connotes 1)belonging or possession and 2)about; 'for' has senses of 1)purpose and 2)desire The report of the incident .... is corerct. I would not choose 'for' in place of 'of.'

Hi. Here's my two cents. 1. The plan OF X ....: X is a plan organizer. You may rephrase it as X's plan. Ex)The plan OF our accounting department leaves nothing to be desired. 2. The plan FOR Y ...: Y is something for which the plan is

Thank you, paco. Why haven't I seen this structure before? That's probably because the fronting is for emphasis. It's natural that an emphatic structure should occur rarely so that it can have its due effect. If it does often, it no longer

Hello, everyone. The other day I casually picked up a book my son had borrowed from his school library. While reading it, I came across the 'So that S V, S V ...' pattern. "So that..." here, of course, presented the concept of 'purpose' that

Hi, paco. Browsing your words, I guess you are an expert in both physics and chemistry. As a layman in these fields, which I hated in my high school days three decades ago, my guess may prove downright wrong. May I ask you to put my name on

You deserve my admiration, paco. You mentioned you are an engineer. I've never heard of a 'linguistic' engineer. It's not easy to have two fields down pat. Judging from our moderators' silence on this issue, they seem to endorse both your

Hi, Jack. There is no change in meaning itself. The question is whether 'one in ten' is considered singular or plural. Though paco seems to gravitate toward the plural side, I'd rather see it as singular. As you may understand, as far as

Hi, paco. I have a different view on this. "One in XYZ" is considered a singualr subject, I dare say. ex)One in (every) 5 people has a car. Let me cite part of the story stored in my computer. In some ancient societies, the birth of