Help with English

Saint said:
cherry pick = randomly pick?
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No, it means to pick only those that you want. If you were to pick cherries from a tree to eat, you wouldn't systematically pick every single one but only the ones that you think would benefit you the most (e.g. ripest). And you would not pick the rest.

So it means to select just the best things.
 
Not just to pick the ones you like, but also to ignore the ones you don't like. That ignoring, turning a blind eye, is an important part of "cherry picking".

For example, suppose I want to argue that a certain drug is effective. Cherry-picking the evidence might mean citing only studies that support its effectiveness, while failing to mention other studies that show that it is ineffective.
 
"in" as a prefix can have the sense of "not" or "into" .It is used in the latter sense in "inflammable" and so the two words have more or less exactly the same meaning.

It is unfortunate that the word "inflammable" is used at all as it lends itself to misunderstanding (I used to be regularly confused and even if one is not confused ,how is one to know if it is being used correctly or incorrectly by the speaker?)
 
Saint said:
why flammable and inflammable same?
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There were two Latin words that were very similar: flammare which means "to set on fire" and inflammare which means "to be caused to be set on fire".
My understanding was that flammare was the deliberate act of setting something on fire, whereas inflammare was more for just the state of being set on fire. So a house could be caused to be set on fire by a chip pan accident, lightning strike etc, but a torch or candle would more likely just to be set on fire.
Something like that, anyway.

These days, however, the two words do tend to mean the exactly the same.
I've heard one distinction between them being that "flammable" simply means "can be (deliberately) set alight", whereas "inflammable" means "can catch fire (with no deliberate act involved)". Maybe this is correct, but I'm not sure.
 
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geordief said:
"in" as a prefix can have the sense of "not" or "into" .It is used in the latter sense in "inflammable" and so the two words have more or less exactly the same meaning.
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Actually in this case the "in-" has the meaning of "causative", or "intensive". It is similar to "imperil", which doesn't mean "not be peril" but means "cause peril".
It is unfortunate that the word "inflammable" is used at all as it lends itself to misunderstanding (I used to be regularly confused and even if one is not confused ,how is one to know if it is being used correctly or incorrectly by the speaker?)
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I think the UK government officially uses "flammable" so as to avoid that confusion.
 
To further complicated the issue, a part of the body can be "inflamed" - i.e. coloured like a flame.
 
Sarkus said:
There were two Latin words that were very similar: flammare which means "to set on fire" and inflammare which means "to be caused to be set on fire".
My understanding was that flammare was the deliberate act of setting something on fire, whereas inflammare was more for just the state of being set on fire. So a house could be caused to be set on fire by a chip pan accident, lightning strike etc, but a torch or candle would more likely just to be set on fire.
Something like that, anyway.

These days, however, the two words do tend to mean the exactly the same.
I've heard one distinction between them being that "flammable" simply means "can be (deliberately) set alight", whereas "inflammable" means "can catch fire (with no deliberate act involved)". Maybe this is correct, but I'm not sure.
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I sometimes go to these people for advice on Latin or Greek as mine has gone down the tube but not far enough to kill off my curiosity.

http://latindiscussion.com/forum/
 
Continuous means happening all the time, on and on without stopping.
Continual means happening repeatedly. It usually means something happens frequently or at closely-spaced intervals, but there are breaks in between happenings.

Do you own a dictionary? Got google?
 
Saint said:
I did all the jobs, but he piggybacked on the outcomes and claim credit.

Correct?
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"hijacked my job then claimed credit"
"pretended to help then stole all the glory"
"exploited my good nature then stole the credit for my work"
"came along for the ride then stole the lime light"
 
Saint said:
I did all the jobs, but he piggybacked on the outcomes and claim credit.

Correct?
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For someone supposedly trying to learn English,it would be more convincing if some of the basic grammatical errors were cut out.

It should read "claimed credit"

The past tense is pretty universally employed across all languages,I would suppose?
 
Saint said:
I did all the jobs, but he piggybacked on the outcomes and claim credit.

Correct?
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I would not quite put it that way.
Piggybacking - to me - is not a negative term. Piggybacking usually costs the piggybackee little or nothing.
Parasitism or leeching are the negative terms. They hurt the piggybackee.

I'm not sure if piggybacking applies well do doing school work or work-work. It is sort of expected that each person will contribute according to their ability, so there is some implicit harm if he does not do the work himself.

Piggybacking is much more like hitchhiking. It costs you nothing to help someone else not have to make the journey on their own.
 
Saint said:
hinder and hamper means the same?
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Pretty much, yes.
There is a slight difference, in that the underlying sense of hinder is "to keep back", so obstacles in your path hinder your progress, and keep you back from your goal.
"Hamper", however, has more of a meaning of being restrained from moving, so your progress could be hampered if you have to carry a large weight.

But in everyday use they pretty much mean the same thing.
 
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