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  1. What is the meaning of "bunt"? - English Language & Usage Stack …

    Apr 19, 2016 · A bunt in baseball is a gentle tap of the ball that causes the opposing team to scramble from their usual positions (catcher and pitcher in particular). Its goal is to get the hitter to a single …

  2. Is blunt the right expression for directness?

    Jun 14, 2023 · A 'blunt' statement is when someone says things to the point and factual. But wouldn't 'sharp' (or some other word that implies frankness or sharpness) be a better word than 'blunt'? As …

  3. What is the origin of "giving [it] the old college try"?

    For more background on the use of the phrase, including some connotations I wasn't aware of, I offer the following entry in Paul Dickson's The Dickson Baseball Dictionary: old college try A wild and …

  4. What is the origin of "bunfight", and how has the term evolved?

    Oct 1, 2016 · The Oxford English Dictionary defines a bun-fight as: a jocular expression for a tea-party The OED gives a single quote, from 1928, which uses the words wayzgoose and Eisteddfod and is …

  5. What is the etymology of the Baseball term “meat hand”?

    May 17, 2015 · For example, “On the bunt the pitcher used his meat hand instead of gloving the ball to get the out at first.” For a third baseman someone would just say that he “palmed the ball to get the …

  6. Adjectival form of "collide"—"collideable" or "collidable"?

    Oct 16, 2020 · I need to name an interface in a program I'm writing as being able to collide, but I've seen use of both collideable and collidable in projects with a similar type. Both of them look right in some ...

  7. Difference between 'willst' and 'wilt' in 'Shakespearean' English?

    Nov 16, 2019 · I am writing a scene from Macbeth detailing the battle before the play for my 11th-grade English class, and I decided to write it in Shakespearean for fun. I have been trying to figure out the …

  8. adverbs - The next week vs the following week - English Language ...

    Oct 14, 2025 · There's little difference between "the following week" and "the next week". But refer to the week after some previously established event or time period. If nothing specific is established, we …

  9. capitalization - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

    Oct 23, 2023 · That said, you could make the argument that, etymologically, the vertical version is more accurate, as our y comes from the Greek ypsilon, which came from the Phoenician waw, which were …

  10. What is the origin of the phrase ‘By the by...’?

    Apr 4, 2011 · I found the first entries during history, not the exact origin of the expression, unfortunately. They are around the 17th Century. by the by (earlier by a by, on or upon the by): by a side way, on a …