English Questions

Ask specific questions about your target languages. Beginner questions welcome!
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allf100
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Re: English Questions

Postby allf100 » Mon Jan 10, 2022 9:51 am

Re: high-speed rail

Hello,

Can I replace 'high-speed rail' with 'high-speed train' in the quoted which is from a report of CNN?

Thank you!

Genome sequencing of the virus found that it belongs to the same transmission chain as the Tianjin outbreak, according to Henan health authorities. A university student who returned to Anyang from Tianjin on December 28 is believed to have brought back the virus -- suggesting the variant has already been spreading in Tianjin for nearly two weeks, at the least.
That is particularly worrying news to officials in Beijing, which is fewer than 30 minutes away from Tianjin by high-speed rail.

source: CNN
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Re: English Questions

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Jan 10, 2022 10:28 am

allf100 wrote:Re: high-speed rail

Hello,

Can I replace 'high-speed rail' with 'high-speed train' in the quoted which is from a report of CNN?

Thank you!

Genome sequencing of the virus found that it belongs to the same transmission chain as the Tianjin outbreak, according to Henan health authorities. A university student who returned to Anyang from Tianjin on December 28 is believed to have brought back the virus -- suggesting the variant has already been spreading in Tianjin for nearly two weeks, at the least.
That is particularly worrying news to officials in Beijing, which is fewer than 30 minutes away from Tianjin by high-speed rail.

source: CNN

Yes.
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Re: English Questions

Postby rdearman » Mon Jan 10, 2022 12:56 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
allf100 wrote:Re: high-speed rail

Hello,

Can I replace 'high-speed rail' with 'high-speed train' in the quoted which is from a report of CNN?

Thank you!

Genome sequencing of the virus found that it belongs to the same transmission chain as the Tianjin outbreak, according to Henan health authorities. A university student who returned to Anyang from Tianjin on December 28 is believed to have brought back the virus -- suggesting the variant has already been spreading in Tianjin for nearly two weeks, at the least.
That is particularly worrying news to officials in Beijing, which is fewer than 30 minutes away from Tianjin by high-speed rail.

source: CNN

Yes.

I would argue that rather than "Yes", it is actually "It depends". You can't replace it generically across all sentences, although in this example it is fine. If you are specifically speaking about the actual physical train and carriages, then you must use high-speed train, conversely if you are speaking only of the link between the two cities you should use high-speed rail.

For example, in this sentence we are only speaking about the link between two cities. "The high-speed rail between Paris and Grenoble will be discontinued for the next 5 months while maintenance workers replace faulty stress anchors."

So to the OP, remember that while in the specific example you asked about it is OK to use high-speed train, that isn't always the case, although generally the two terms are interchangeable.
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Re: English Questions

Postby allf100 » Tue Jan 11, 2022 2:43 am

Hello DaveAgain and rdearman, thank you very much for your help! :)
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Re: English Questions

Postby allf100 » Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:08 am

Hello,

I am reading a book named Answer Cancer by Steve Parkhill who is an American.

Would someone please help me with the questions as below if the snippet of context which is attached to the end of the post I transcribe is enough?

1. Who is ol' Al or Jason?
2. "When the mustard bits the hot dog and they all begin to bark?" --What is the meaning of the words?
3. "Fourteen men in the boat and the oars leak" - What is the meaning of the words? This is the subtitle of Chapter 20 Prevention.


Thank you so much for your reading!

Context:
Chapter 20 Prevention.

In my first job out of high school, I was eyeball deep in old Pennsylvania Dutchmen. Highly skill mechanics, these guy had expressions for everythin. Some straight forward and right to the point. Others were too bizarre to believe, but they somehowmade sense when ol' Al or Jason said them. "When the mustard bits the hot dog and they all begin to bark". Or another favorite of mine,"Fourteen men in the boat and the oars leak". I've been able to figure out the last one, but I may never get the mustard and the barking hot dog thing.

Anyway, one of their favorites was, "Never time to do it right-always time to do it over'. Like most people, I have had to do a lot of things over and over and over again. And that's okay. The universe is perfectly at peace with that. The universe will just keep balancing itself.So much energy into throwing a rock - it will go so far. Say so many bad things to a kid and the child will act so bad...
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Re: English Questions

Postby luke » Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:17 am

allf100 wrote:1. Who is ol' Al or Jason?
2. "When the mustard bits the hot dog and they all begin to bark?" --What is the meaning of the words?
3. "Fourteen men in the boat and the oars leak" - What is the meaning of the words? This is the subtitle of Chapter 20 Prevention.


Context:
Chapter 20 Prevention.

In my first job out of high school, I was eyeball deep in old Pennsylvania Dutchmen. Highly skill mechanics, these guy had expressions for everythin. Some straight forward and right to the point. Others were too bizarre to believe, but they somehowmade sense when ol' Al or Jason said them. "When the mustard bits the hot dog and they all begin to bark". Or another favorite of mine,"Fourteen men in the boat and the oars leak". I've been able to figure out the last one, but I may never get the mustard and the barking hot dog thing.

1. A couple of the highly skilled mechanics the narrator worked with at his first job.
2. Mustard is a common condiment on a hot dog. Dogs bark, so they are playing with that idea.
3. We should be making more progress with this many men on the job.
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Re: English Questions

Postby DaveAgain » Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:23 am

allf100 wrote:Hello,

I am reading a book named Answer Cancer by Steve Parkhill who is an American.

Would someone please help me with the questions as below if the snippet of context which is attached to the end of the post I transcribe is enough?

1. Who is ol' Al or Jason?
2. "When the mustard bits the hot dog and they all begin to bark?" --What is the meaning of the words?
3. "Fourteen men in the boat and the oars leak" - What is the meaning of the words? This is the subtitle of Chapter 20 Prevention.


Thank you so much for your reading!

Context:
Chapter 20 Prevention.

In my first job out of high school, I was eyeball deep in old Pennsylvania Dutchmen. Highly skill mechanics, these guy had expressions for everythin. Some straight forward and right to the point. Others were too bizarre to believe, but they somehowmade sense when ol' Al or Jason said them. "When the mustard bits the hot dog and they all begin to bark". Or another favorite of mine,"Fourteen men in the boat and the oars leak". I've been able to figure out the last one, but I may never get the mustard and the barking hot dog thing.

Anyway, one of their favorites was, "Never time to do it right-always time to do it over'. Like most people, I have had to do a lot of things over and over and over again. And that's okay. The universe is perfectly at peace with that. The universe will just keep balancing itself.So much energy into throwing a rock - it will go so far. Say so many bad things to a kid and the child will act so bad...

1. Al and Jason were his co-workers "highly skilled mechanics"
2. This is an expression that Al or Jason used when explaining something about fixing cars to the narrator. "These guys had expressions for everything. Some straight forward and right to the point, others too bizarre to believe but they somehow made sense when Al or Jason said them"
3. This was part of an explanation that Al or Jason gave to the narrator, in explaining how to fix a car. We don't know what it means, and the narrator has already warned us that some of the expressions they used were "bizarre". This is an example of one of the bizarre ones.
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Re: English Questions

Postby luke » Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:36 am

luke wrote:
allf100 wrote:2. "When the mustard bits the hot dog and they all begin to bark?" --What is the meaning of the words?

In my first job out of high school, I was eyeball deep in old Pennsylvania Dutchmen. Highly skill mechanics, these guy had expressions for everythin. Some straight forward and right to the point. Others were too bizarre to believe, but they somehowmade sense when ol' Al or Jason said them. "When the mustard bits the hot dog and they all begin to bark". Or another favorite of mine,"Fourteen men in the boat and the oars leak". I've been able to figure out the last one, but I may never get the mustard and the barking hot dog thing.

2. Mustard is a common condiment on a hot dog. Dogs bark, so they are playing with that idea.

So a small part of the machine they were working on failed (the mustard) and it created a big problem (all the dogs began to bark).
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allf100
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Persian (A little, completely forgot it.)
Sankrit (Just for alphabet, and forgot them all)
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Re: English Questions

Postby allf100 » Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:17 pm

Hello Luke and DaveAgain,

Thank you so much for your answers. Have a good one! :D
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Re: English Questions

Postby Le Baron » Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:22 pm

Is it really 'bits' the hotdog? Or 'hits' the hotdog?

The first one makes no sense to me.
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