I'm about to send out some questions to someone.  How was it starting your own business? tougher,easier than you had expected?   Does "tougher" need to become "Tougher"?
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May I use a question mark in the middle of a sentence? Examples:  Would you like the drapes to be white? or perhaps something off-white? Would you like the logo to be centered? at the bottom? left off entirely?
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Before marking this post duplicate or voting to get it closed (the reason for which I simply don't get just because it is a grammar forum after all! If I am seeking recommendation for a book that means I will be coming back someday to the same site for my doubts also provided I get a not so harsh reply!), please read this and help this MBA aspirant.   A little about myself and my research so far. I am a very critical reader of English Grammar and the kind of person who aims at perfection.  Currently, I am keen on taking on English grammar again after a certain gap. Well, I am aiming for MBA, so preparing for entrance exams for the same.  I bought the religiously followed Wren and Martin and started studying it chapter by chapter. I was surprised when I read the pronouns chapter. I studied all the rules given and then started practising but it came as surprise when I found when many of the attempted questions were wrong. The reason simply being the rules for those specific sentences were not given.   For example:     We scored as many goals as they/them?    According to me, the answer should be they, but it's them according to the solution manual. Worse still, the solution manual offers no explanation for this.  So after a chat with my teachers I was suggested to follow the blogs of grammarians and look for any rules for the sentences that have contradictory answers!  I did so and was clarified by  post of pronouns, Rule 5.  Then I saw a book by the same author. I was momentarily happy. It was Momentarily because the reviews on Amazon were too bad about this book. After reading a couple of forums about the book I found a common statement saying that no grammar book is exhaustive.  So, it's okay for me to have more than one. And my simple question is what will be a good and almost exhaustive (if not fully exhaustive) book of English grammar to help get through the subtle usages of English in my management entrances  which is crisp and to the point and yet covers all important rules and syntax, and most importantly having practice tests at the end with solutions and explanations?
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I will have it done by tomorrow    Would you please by some example describe what does the bold part mean?   I think the bold part is passive, isn't it?  Thanks in advance
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So, you have a web site to which you've posted a review stating "How to Kick Ass". This gets censored, which I can understand.  What's a very colloquial, not necessarily modern slang, easily recognizable equivalent to kick ass?  This review is in a military context.  The metric is, would it be inspiring for a graduation speech at West Point but also easily recognizable to a civilian? If it's a bit… colorful, then all the better. But it should be able to pass profanity filters.  Clarification of the context.  It's about a German WWII armored tactics history/handbook.  My original review title was going to be 'Kick Butt 103' - I wanted to convey the sense that it was an impressive course to instill advanced organizational wisdom and experience, in this case on how to dominate your enemy.  Besides the title, my review goes into more details about how it is very much a 'how to' combat manual.  But I did want the title to be somewhat clear on its own.  Amazon wasn't keen on 'butt' however - which I thought a bit over the top.  Butt is colloquial, and colorful, but hardly obscene or profane.  'Kick Ass 103' would work as well.  But 'Trounce 103' or 'Dominate 103', to take two good suggestions below, would, in my opinion, leave a reader rather puzzled as to what I was trying to say - about the only thing those two evoke are edgy website user names.  Pown 103 might work, but that is gamer slang and might be too obscure to older readers.
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It's    that posting links to your own website is ok, but should there be a line drawn? There were several spam flags today for 's recent posts, presumably because they all link to his website. Initially I disagreed because his answers seem for the most part relevant to the question, but then I looked into it more and realized there's three things that set this apart from most of the related cases that have come up:   This isn't an occasional thing -- he's posted  in the last year This isn't a random blog he writes for a fun, it's a for-profit company he  and makes money promoting I'm not willing to go through all 412, but from the sample I checked, he generally doesn't mention that the products he's recommending are his own. The site is linked from his profile, but most people aren't going to check that   Is all this considered acceptable use, or are the spam flags accurate?
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I came across an English learner writing     It snowed hard Monday.   After saying that it didn't snow on Friday and Saturday.  It didn't quite feel right to me.  I'd be okay with     It snowed hard.   or     It snowed Monday.   Is it okay for there to be two things ("hard" and "Monday") modifying the snowing without an "on" breaking things up a bit?
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Hello native English speakers!  I want to ask you about either and both. I tried to find similar questions in this site but I think they were not same with these ones.  My questions are;   I was invited to two parties, but I couldn't go to ------- of them.  I took two books with me on holidays, but I didn't read ------- of     them.   I choose both for questions 1 and 2. But the right answers were either. But I think both and either are correct either. Am I right?   Thank you in advance!
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When I was in New York the workers at the counter (in a shop) always said      Hi, how are you doing?   I was, and still am very confused if they just mean "hello", or actually want to know how I feel.  Could someone please tell me if this is just an empty phrase or if the speaker is genuinely interested.
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What does this mean?      I am sure this would not have been possible had I remained a typical Anglophone North American.   I have never heard that before and I really find it strange.  I deduce that it means      I am sure this would not have been possible if I kept remaining Anglophone North American.   But I might be wrong in this.
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can you tell me how can I put questions and get more answers ! what I should do to get more interaction with my posts ! waiting for hours and days maybe months to get an answer or comment is not good ... Really I want some advices , thanks in advance
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I'm looking for a couple of good coined phrases that I can use in front of business people, apologies if the one I had in mind offends anyone.   I'd use "can sleep at night" but I want the phrase to imply legal liability if we don't do something.
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I just thought that they wouldn't announce themselves as such. So what would they say if they are trying to get the message across but not be open about it. Anyway I wanted an opinion so why not here?
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This is a bit of a nitpick, but on the  page on StackOverflow, it states that:  Questions that need improvement may be closed until someone fixes them.  This should probably be tweaked given the new  policy. The original also seems a tad passive to me -- perhaps it would be more helpful if it were reworded in a way to encourage new users to be proactive in editing their own questions to get them reopened?
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Guys, I just wonder if people are allowed to have civilized discussion (on any IT topic) on this forum without actually being accused of starting a row. I'm asking this question for a reason that few days I've asked few questions referring to VM, JIT etc. and compared them to C++ way and despite the fact that I've explained myself that I'm not starting any agro with anyone, that I'm really just genuinely curious, my post was first closed and then removed. I'm asking: What's wrong with asking nonstandard questions which sometimes my be quite difficult to answer? Thanks
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I read with interest  and the comment . I also read  and  the infamous FAQ answer   With rare exceptions, such as , the MSO attitude seems to be that people responding to questions have a "right" to choose not to directly answer the question in favor of an answer which basically tells the OP they "shouldn't be doing it that way". The advice all focuses on the information the OP should provide to avoid this kind of response rather than suggesting that those providing answers should be respectful of questions and not make assumptions that there is some underlying problem that the OP is trying to solve that should be addressed instead.  In rationalizing the approach of not answering the question, two "carpenter" analogies were used, one involving a question about how to cut balsa wood and the other involving a question which of two non-tool household items is better to pound a nail. In both cases, they ask the rhetorical question of whether it's better to answer the question or challenge the question.  My MSO question here is: Why do so many seem to think they have to choose between these two ways of responding? Why don't folks consider answering the question and supplementing their answer as they wish with questions, challenges, additional information, editorial opinion, etc. Not only is that more respectful to the OP, it's more respectful to future readers who arrived at the answer based on the question asked. If I do a search about how to cut balsa wood, I don't want to land on an answer that just tells me what a bad idea it is to use balsa wood in house construction.  Update: While I don't want to focus on specific examples, in response to some of the answers/comments, here's a recent one where I was the one asking the question:      Although it would take me a while to uncover examples, the more common occurrences I run into are where someone shares some code and an error they are getting and ask why they are getting that error. Instead of explaining the error, the answers typically propose some other approach. Admittedly, the OP is often times satisfied with that answer and not knowing why the error occurred, but I would contend the community is the poorer for it and, as a rule, this practice unnecessarily runs the risk of offending.
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I've just started getting these messages:     Please avoid extended discussions in comments. Would you like to automatically move this discussion to chat?   Why should one avoid doing this? I think it adds to the site...  (Tagged  in more ways than one!)
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I've been lurking Stack Overflow whenever I had a problem for at least the last 2+ years. More times than not, I find my solution (or cobble one together) before I get frustrated enough to have the innernets help me with my specific custom problem.  Many times, the only commentary I would be able to add would be "thanks!" which really only wastes bits and bandwidth.  I understand implementing measures to keep the bots and SEO kids out, but sometimes it's a PITA to start participating in a community.  If you couldn't extract my question from the above rant (or title), this might be a little more clear:  Why do I require 15 reps to just up-vote something?  I feel like it's kinda silly.  Additionally, I noticed the quote off to the left:     We prefer questions that can be answered, not just discussed.   yet I have looked around here and haven't been able to find any justifiable explanation.