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.
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Question: What am I doing when I search for something on the internet and the search provides for some other interesting stuff apart from what I was looking for and I end up opening an infinite number of browser tabs and browsing more and more it goes in an endless loop and the whole episode makes for after thought to ponder upon. PS: I lost the term I had found on Wikipedia and I cannot get it back.

Answer: Tab-surfing From wikipedia: Tab-surfing, also more accurately known as 'Branching' is a type of link-surfing in which, rather than click directly through to the next web page, the link is opened as a new window or new Tab. This method is used by people wishing to read as much information as possible on a variety of subjects which may or may not be related. The parent article is about Link-surfing: Link surfing is the process of starting on one article on a website and clicking on various hyperlinks to eventually finish on a different (pre-determined) article. There are all sorts of web browsing details here.


Question: I frequently encounter phrases like this: 'It allows to apply these features to customisable sets of fonts'. My question is whether this is proper English or not? In my mind, 'it allows the application of ...' or 'it allows one to apply ...' sound much better. I suspect that this is a Germanism (that would explain why I hear it so often), but it would be nice to know for sure.

Answer: I just ran a Google Books ngram and saw that from 1800-2012 the incidence of It allows to has risen from 0.0000011% to 0.0000053%. The biggest rise was from 1980 until now: 0.000002%-0.0000053%. From what I can tell from the books in which this appears, the most recent are technical writing by non-native-speakers of English. A couple from the 19th century are legitimate English: the assembly may compel the observance of a proper decorum by all persons, whom it allows to be present at its proceedings. and It assembles more frequently, and at its own time, without any control from the king ; and it allows to him only a ... Jim's example, It allows to pass certain particles while trapping others, is certainly, as he says, unwieldy because it's not parallel: It allows to pass certain particles and {allows not / disallows} others. which is a style monster regardless of the parallel construction. It should be: It allows certain particles to pass {while trapping / but traps / but disallows} others. The syntax is so bad in that sentence that, however grammatically valid it is, Fowler would retch after reading it. Merely thinking it up would violate the admonition against secret sin in the Sermon on the Mount, and actually writing it for public consumption would cause the reader as much pain as would driving a wooden stake through the heart of the sleeping Dracula cause the vampire. Your conclusion that ''it allows the application of ...' or 'it allows one to apply ...' sound much better' is absolutely correct. That's what language is about in part: what it sounds like. If it sounds bad, it is bad, grammar be damned.


Question: I've seen many people who say: This is a HTML page. Yet I've also seen many people who say: This is an HTML page. Are both usages equally correct? Or, which is the grammatically correct one? Possible Duplicates: 'A' vs. 'An' in writing vs. pronunciation Do you use 'a' or 'an' before acronyms?.

Answer:
It depends on whether you say aitch or haitch. An aitch tee em el page A haitch tee em el page