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.

[Q]: If there are an odd number of competitors at any stage of a single-elimination tournament, one player is excused from play and continues on as if he had defeated his (nonexistent) opponent. This is called 'getting a by'. Or 'getting a bye'. Who knows, maybe it's even 'getting a buy', although I doubt it. My dictionary lists by as meaning 'pass' in card-games, so that suggests that spelling. On the other hand, the image of the referee looking from the single player, to the empty and undefended far side of the field, and then back to the player, shrugging, and saying 'Bye', is too strong to easily discard. Like other parts of the anatomy, everyone's got an opinion. I'm looking for a cite.
[A]: Here's what you get: bye 1 |bi| noun 1 the transfer of a competitor directly to the next round of a competition in the absence of an assigned opponent. [From the New Oxford American Dictionary.]


[Q]: I'm having a serious argument with a friend on the status of the word 'suck' when I used it about him by saying 'You suck!' because he missed a train. We are both non-native English speakers. He claimed that I used it as a foul or slang term. I vehemently disagreed with him about it. I told him that the word 'suck' can be used to describe something inefficient or not good enough as well like it is used in the example 'Samsung mobile sucks'. Am I right to describe the use of the word 'suck' in such context?.
[A]: Yes, you can use the word in the way that you have described, but it's considered more harsh than polite, and it has somewhat vulgar overtones. How it's regarded or received might be generational. I typed is suck vulgar? on Google, and found mixed responses. Feel free to do the same if you want diverse opinions on the matter. I thought this excerpt from a blog post, though, was worth pasting into an answer here: Some may not believe this, but suck as in 'Man, this class sucks' was also in the raw obscenity category when I was a teenager. It was used plenty in the school hallways but not in front of your teacher and never in front of your mother. I remember some agitation by certain culturally-advanced youngsters who tried to railroad their elders into accepting sucks as a safe and harmless substitute for stinks. The elders weren't having any of it, last I checked, but the liberalizing linguists seem to have carried the day. I have always assumedrightly or wrongly, I do not know that the word was originally intended to carry sexual overtones, which was the reason for its suppression. Today, the sexual overtones are either forgotten or are now acceptable in mixed company. I'm not sure which explanation disturbs me more. I think you and your friend are unlikely to come up with an agreed-upon viewpoint, because you're both right in a way. Feel free to use it on message boards and the like when you want to express a negative opinion, but realize you'll risk sounding a bit uncouth to some when you do. Then again, maybe I'm just showing my age here. As a footnote, you might want to check out our sister site, English Language Learners.


[Q]: Everybody deals with this phenomenon daily but I had my curiousity piqued when someone claimed that punishing the many for the actions of the few was just called 'group punishment.' Group Punishment is simply punishing a large group of people. Is there a specific word for when a large group is punished because of the actions of the few? Such as in the following: Little Jimmy wasn't happy when the entire class was forced to work through recess because of 3 kids getting into a fight yesterday.
[A]:
Collective punishment is the formal expression: Penalty imposed on every member of a group without regard to his or her involvement in the group's actions and conduct. Related: collective responsibility. (www.businessdictionary.com) Is collective punishment fair in the classroom?: Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions collective punishment is considered a war crime. 'No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible.' Unfortunately for our students they do not have rights as general citizens or even our war enemies and common criminals in society. They shed their rights as they enter the double doors of the school and us parents shed our ability to ask for fair treatment of our children.