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It is strange to look at sentences where "in" or "into" appear to be mandatory and those in which there is some flexibility. It is never possible to use "into" with the static meaning of "in", but there is a lot of room for flexibility the other way. Indeed, in some cases it it obligatory to use "in...

Sentences a and c are fine.

Sentence b needs some kind of complement to the verb "present" to make it work. Either of the following would work:

• She was a better person than she was presented as by her detractors.
• She was a better person than she was presented as being by her detractors.

Generally, we may talk about a "desk lamp" or "desk light". That specific design of desk lamp is usually referred to as an "anglepoise" lamp. "Anglepoise" is in fact a registered trademark, but much like "Kleenex", "Hoover" and so on, the term has become genericized and is used to refer to all desk ...

Ken Greenwald wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 13, 2020 9:23 pm

But I should mention that no one else pointed this out to me either!

Pointed what out to you?

The image in Steven's post is not showing on my machine, neither are a number of images that used to show up. This is a problem with Firefox's enhanced tracking protection. I have written a few more words about it here.

I recently (January 2020) noticed that some referenced images on Wordwizard are not showing up in Firefox. Instead, the word "Image" appears. This happens, for example, on http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27563&p=101890#p101890 It turns out that it is part of Firefox's enhanced t...

Quite so, Erik! It is frustrating to have the education and linguistic knowledge to know for certain what the "rules" are while at the same time having the accumulated wisdom to know that that knowledge counts for nowt! But "lie down/lay down" is interesting in itself. Many people try to adhere to t...

No longer being young, I hesitate to respond. But I shall anyway! It seems to me that, in most parts of the UK, young and old men alike still address their peers with "mate". "Guys" to address a group of people is very common among younger people, and is no longer restricted to males only. The singu...

Yes, Erik is spot on. I have only ever heard the expression "grow a pair", which has exactly the meaning Erik describes. And yes, it it also used in reference to women (much like the phrase "man up"). The expression "grow a pair" is never used in a complete form ("grow a pair of balls"), and I do wo...

It crossed my mind this morning that the adverb "gingerly" has nothing to do with the adjective "ginger". "Prince Harry walked through the minefield gingerly." Oh well, perhaps it does... Seriously, the real story about "ginger" and "gingerly" is on Michael Quinion's pages: http://www.worldwidewords...

A happy new year to you as well, Ken! And to all our readers and contributors. "Shambolic" is another one of those that I don't remember ever being absent from the language, although I would generally associate it not with, for instance, an untidy office, but with an event or organization that is (u...

The derivation of "copy" in English is ultimately from the Latin "copia", meaning "plenty" (as in cornucopia). It probably came into the English language through old French in the late medieval period. This is not to say that "kof" and "copia" may not be cognate through far earlier Indo-European lan...

We would probably use the plural "lights": "angel figure Christmas lights", but other than that, I can't think of anything better.
I have to say, that one (from Regent Street in London) is very impressive indeed.

In Merseyside, in the north of England, it was overcast this morning with a few sunny spells. Temperature about 8 °C. Much too warm for this time of year! Tomorrow should be sunny with the same temperature. In the UK, we switched from Farenheit to Celsius (we used to call it centigrade) as of about ...