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]: What goes in the blank? Commerce Commercial Finance Financial Trade __________.
[A]: One word is mercantile: Related to trade [ODO]


[Q]: 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.
[A]: 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.


[Q]: Can one use kindness as a synonym for politeness? What's the difference? Where do you draw the line between them?.
[A]:
I think this is a situation in which etymology is revealing. The background of polite, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, is: mid-13c., from L. politus 'refined, elegant,' lit. 'polished,' pp. of polire 'to polish, to make smooth.' Used literally at first in English; sense of 'elegant, cultured' is first recorded c.1500, that of 'behaving courteously' is 1762. Polite, both in its original literal usage and in its current usage, is more about superficial appearance. To be polite, one need only use polite words and manners. Nothing internal is necessary. The history of kind, on the other hand, is related to internal goodness: 'friendly,' from O.E. gecynde 'natural, native, innate,' originally 'with the feeling of relatives for each other,' from P.Gmc. gakundiz, from kunjan (see kin), with collective prefix ga- and abstract suffix -iz. Sense development from 'with natural feelings,' to 'well-disposed' (c.1300), 'benign, compassionate' (c.1300). Ultimately, politeness tells you little about a person's character; it may be sincere, or it may be highly calculated. Kindness, though, is directly related to a person's character, and is quite difficult to fake.