Generate the answer for a given question. The question requires common knowledge of English. Make sure that the answer is in detail, long, consistent with the context, and requires general knowledge of English. To be less repetitive, please vary your language for each question. Give a proper explanation to answer, and if necessary, provide the definition of various terms. And conclude your answer if it's long. If you have used other resources (e.g., Merriam Webster's.) to answer the question, include citations in your answer. You don't need to paraphrase the context of your resources, but make sure that your answer is consistent and complete.

Input: Consider Input: I know the two phrases have been adopted into the English lexicon, but raison d'etre and joie de vivre are phrases, not words. As phrases they certainly sound better in French than would their literal translation to English. Are there any 'more English' words or expressions for the same concepts? If not, doesn't that seem odd, or is it common enough for even borrowed phrases to supplant the development of a native term? (Further, it seems a little conspicuous that a language would lack native terms for such core concepts of the human experience!).

Output: We can trace most English words back to a time they were borrowed from another language: Image from Wikipedia.org The expressions raison d'etre and joie de vivre, are relatively recent, acquisitions: raison d'etre (n.) 'excuse for being,' 1864, first recorded in letter of J.S. Mill, from French raison d'etre, literally 'rational grounds for existence.' joie de vivre (n.) 1889, French, literally 'joy of living.' etymonline.com emphasis added I might add that the acquisition of joie de vivre seems incomplete, as the etymology lists it as French, rather than from French. It seems to have a reasonable chance of making a complete entry into English eventually, since we have always been quite hospitable toward elegant French expressions. I still italicize joie de vivre as a foreign expression in my writing, but it seems common enough that some might consider it pure English. As a reasonable intersection of the two French phrases, I like life force: noun The vital principle or animating force within living beings: The American Heritage® Roget's Thesaurus. The rational basis of our existence as living things is some life force that we do not yet fully understand, and joy seems to be a particularly meaningful expression of our life force. Some may complain that the word force is still too French, because it was borrowed from Old French, but it was actually quite a long time ago: c. 1300, 'physical strength,' from Old French force 'force, strength; courage, fortitude; violence, power, compulsion' (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *fortia (source also of Old Spanish forzo, Spanish fuerza, Italian forza), noun use of neuter plural of Latin fortis 'strong, mighty; firm, steadfast; brave, bold' (see fort). etymonline.com emphasis added If we concede to the objections against force, we can still be satisfied with plain old life, which is about as English as any English word can get: Old English life (dative lif) 'existence, lifetime, way of life, condition of being a living thing, opposite of death,' from Proto-Germanic *libam (cognates: Old Norse lif 'life, body,' Dutch lijf 'body,' Old High German lib 'life,' German Leib 'body'), properly 'continuance, perseverance,' from PIE *leip- 'to remain, persevere, continue; stick, adhere' (see leave (v.)). Much of the modern range of meanings was present in Old English. Meaning 'property which distinguishes living from non-living matter' is from 1560s. Sense of 'vitality, energy' is from 1580s. Extended 1703 to 'term of duration (of inanimate objects).' etymonline.com emphasis added Language is my life. Meaning: Language is my conscious rationale to work another day, and the deepest joy of my heart.


Input: Consider Input: What can I call someone (a friend) who is always asking for favours such as: if you are going downtown, can you buy this for me please or, can you lend me your car for an hour or, if you have some spare time, can you post this letter for me please because I am so busy today He doesn't seem to realise or, pretends not to, that there is a limit to asking for help or favours from other people.

Output: He may be called a moocher. It is used for a person who tries to get to something free of charge.


Input: Consider Input: Should I write it like this? Or perhaps like this? Should I write it like this? or perhaps like this? What about after an exclamation mark or semicolon?.


Output: Did the sentence end after the question mark? Yes. Then you need a capital letter to start the new sentence, just as usual. No. Then the question mark shouldn't have been there, since it ends a sentence. Right, I should expand on that rather than just be a grumpy old man. The capitalization rule that we care about here is that the first word of a sentence starts with a capital letter, so the question is really about what ends a sentence. The answer to that is easy: terminal punctuation, i.e. a full stop (or period if you're American), question mark or exclamation mark. There's a visual clue in that '?' and '!' are decorated full stops; you just have to remember that a colon (':') isn't really a decorated full stop, not that you'd ever know by looking at it. Colons, semicolons and commas aren't terminal punctuation, so they don't end a sentence and so don't force the next letter to be a capital. It may be a capital letter for some other reason such as being the start of a proper name, but not because it is starting a sentence. There are exceptions to this rule, occasions when '?' and '!' become non-terminal punctuation. The most obvious is in quoted speech: if the speaker asks a question or makes an exclamation, the '?' or '!' doesn't have to be terminal if the sentence carries on after the quote. 'Should I write it like this?' he asked. 'Or perhaps like this?' The other class of exception is for what are probably really parenthetical comments. If you have a short phrase that you could have put aside in parentheses or dashes, then a question mark or exclamation mark can be used at the end of that phrase without ending the sentence. Be sparing with this. It looks wrong at a first read, and engenders the sort of argument I had with Jason in the comments below! Should I write it like this, or abracadabra! like this? Going back to the examples, and adding a few more for fun: Should I write it like this? Or perhaps like this? Should I write it like this? or perhaps like this? Should I write it like this, or perhaps like that? 'Should I write it like this?' he asked, 'or perhaps like that?' Example 2 with the lowercase 'or' is just plain wrong. Crusty old grammarians who disapprove of starting sentences with conjunctions may frown at example 1 all they like, but it's a perfectly acceptable fragmentary sentence. Whether it's the right answer or not is another question entirely. Example 1 makes the point that the questions are distinct, though they are strongly linked otherwise the whole structure wouldn't work. Example 3 on the other hand emphasizes that the two questions are options in a common situation, as well as reflecting a different way of saying them. That is obvious in this case because the two questions really are tightly coupled alternatives. However, consider the following: Are the lights green? Or is the switch up? Are the lights green, or is the switch up? Both of these examples imply that the state of the lights and the state of the switch are related somehow. Version 2 couples them more tightly; I would usually assume (without more context) that either this is the same question being asked in two different ways (i.e. that the switch being up should cause the lights to be green), or that they are an exhaustive list of possibilities (either the switch is up or the lights are green, but not both or neither). This isn't an absolute rule, but it is quite strongly implied. Example 4 is also wrong, though it has a better disguise. If you unwrap the quotes, what you get is: Should I write it like this? or perhaps like this? which is our duff example 2 back again. What you actually want is one of: 'Should I write it like this?' he asked. 'Or perhaps like this?' (i.e. example 1) 'Should I write it like this,' he asked, 'or perhaps like that? (i.e. example 3) depending this time on how much of a break there is supposed to be in the middle of what was said. But speech-marking is a topic for another question :-) Exclamation marks work just like question marks for this purpose! Semicolons don't; they end a clause, not a sentence.