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.

Example Input: I wrote this sentence: Why wouldn't it be valid? --and I realized that without the contraction it becomes: Why would it not be valid? As opposed to 'why would not it be valid,' as the contraction would imply. What's going on here? Why can I contract across the middle word this way? Or, to put it the other way, why can't I 'de-contract' this without moving the not over by a word?.
Example Output: Even though the standard term for these combinations of an auxiliary + -n't is 'contractions', grammatically they act like single, indivisible words*; rather than like two words slurred together (though that was evidently their historical origin). This single word is a auxiliary, so it goes in the normal position for an auxiliary in an interrogative sentence: after the question-word and before the subject. Why wouldn't it be valid? Question word - auxiliary - subject - [rest of sentence] When you use 'would not,' on the other hand, you have two words: the auxiliary 'would', and the distinct word 'not' (a word that doesn't fit very well into the general part-of-speech categories). The auxiliary again goes into the normal position for an auxiliary. The word 'not' has its own, different rules for where it goes in a sentence. Why would it not be valid? Question word - auxiliary - subject - [rest of sentence] *In fact, some linguists think the negative suffix in these words is best analyzed as an inflection in modern English, like the suffix '-s' used in third person.

Example Input: Possible Duplicate: Pronunciation of voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ as (/sh/) in slang? My understanding was that the cluster 'str', for example in 'stress', is usually pronounced /sts/, just like Wiktionary mentions. Their audio sample confirms this. However, I sometimes hear a different kind of pronunciation, namely 'shtress' or something like /ts/ (forgive my IPA knowledge). As an example, Jay Z is rapping about the 'New York city shtreets' (here at ~ 0:30), not 'streets'. The actors from the Jersey Shore seem to do it as well, so I'm starting to believe this is an East Coast / New York thing? So, regarding this oddity: Where in the English world do people speak like this? Is this even localized to a certain area? Is this a recent development? I didn't hear about this back when I was learning English at school. More formally, is this a 'mistake'? My naive explanation would be that it's simply a natural development because the 'sh' forms automatically when you pull back your tongue from forming an 's' to 'r'.
Example Output: After digging for a while, I found the answer in a paper called Assimilation at a Distance by Wayne P. Lawrence.1 It's a little dated (2000), but also cites studies from 1993 and earlier describing this phenomenon. The recent history of American English includes a sound change that seems to have gone unattested in the scholarly literature.1 This is the change of /s/ to // before /tr/ (i.e., a PHONEMIC CHANGE), which involves a palatalization of the initial sound in the cluster /str/, typically in initial position but not exclusively. The author further mentions that 'this phonemic change seems to be neither dialectal nor regional.' However, it's definitely an American English peculiarity. It seems that it was first heard on television or radio broadcasts and became popular over these channels. Of course, the internet helps spreading such a linguistic 'oddity' and even I know I picked it up from television shows and continue to (subconciously) use this pronunciation. Regarding the phonetic principles behind this change, Lawrence summarizes: More concretely, this pronunciation is an implicit 'assertion' on their part that in their grammar /r/, being [+ interrupted], is marked with respect to the opposition INTERRUPTED versus CONTINUOUS - exactly the same way that [], being [+ compact], is marked with respect to the opposition COMPACT versus DIFFUSE. The marked character of /r/ is prompted and confirmed phonetically, of course, by its high degree of retroflection in American English.7 This would explain the fact that we only hear this in American English. What's interesting is that the same does not appear to happen to 'spr', which can be explained by the phonetic differences in 't' and 'p': I would surmise, therefore, that /str/ lends itself to realization as [tr] while /spr/ remains unaltered also due to the phonological value of /t/ and /p/. Another more recent paper was written by David Durian.2 It goes into the details of social background and 'shtr' as well as providing some more explanations for its development. 1 Lawrence, Wayne P. (2000) 'Assimilation at a Distance,' American Speech Vol. 75: Iss. 1: 82-87; doi:10.1215/00031283-75-1-82 2 Durian, David (2007) 'Getting []tronger Every Day?: More on Urbanization and the Socio-geographic Diffusion of (str) in Columbus, OH,' University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: Vol. 13: Iss. 2, Article 6

Example Input: I'm struggling to recall this word. If I recall correctly, it's of French origin. My search has so far been fruitless. The nearest equivalent I came up with was the idiom pulling strings but that is obviously English and not a single word. pull strings / wires (a) to use one's influence or authority, usually in secret, in order to bring about a desired result. (b) to gain or attempt to gain one's objectives by means of influential friends, associates, etc.: He had his uncle pull strings to get him a promotion.
Example Output:
sinecure: sinecure (sini-kyoor, sini-) n. A position or office that requires little or no work but provides a salary. n. Archaic An ecclesiastical benefice not attached to the spiritual duties of a parish. More at Wordnik from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition