descriptive Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar (2 ed.)
... aims of usage books. See also descriptivism ; linguistics ; synchronic linguistics . 3. Semantics . (In some classifications of meaning . ) Descriptive meaning is similar to denotative , cognitive , or referential meaning . Contrasted with attitudinal and interpersonal meaning. Compare ideational . See also communicative meaning ; conative ; connotation ; emotive ; illocutionary meaning...
phrasal verbs Reference library
Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage (4 ed.)
... drop off (= drop, fall; ‘It is expected that by that time the usual afternoon temperatures of about 90° will have started to drop off ’)? While it is true that on a very literal reading the adverb/preposition can seem redundant, it often serves a subtle emphasizing or interpersonal function. 5 Necessary and unnecessary hyphens. Phrasal verbs produce noun derivatives of two types: (i) the verb precedes the adverb/preposition, e.g. breakdown, feedback , and lie-in ; (ii) the adverb/preposition precedes the verb, e.g. backdrop and outcome . Nouns of...
like Reference library
Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage (4 ed.)
...are not good: weaning them off this addiction looks as unlikely as eliminating crack cocaine. It is no doubt true, as highly technical academic papers have suggested, that it is not merely a ‘meaningless’ filler, that it has its own complex rules, and that it fulfils subtle interpersonal functions. However, it is just as true that its overuse will cause listeners outside the speaker’s immediate circle, wider social group, or age cohort to ignore the content of the message completely, to assume that the speaker is little short of brain-dead, or, in extreme...
