instruction:
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.
question:
Is it ok to talk about 'personal PCs', in the sense of distinguishing it from a work PC? Or would it be regarded as a case of RAS Syndrome?.
answer:
Though the word personal is repeated in the expansion 'personal personal computer', the two repetitions use different meanings of the same word. The first personal means 'owned or used by a specific single person' (definition 1 here), while the second indicates 'designed to be used by a single person' (definition 2 here, again). Both instances are required to convey the full idea and thus are not redundant. Consider the following examples spelled out in full: Personal PC: personal personal computer, (the usual case of a personal computer owned by a person) personal mainframe computer (I have a Cray in my bedroom), Public PC: public personal computer (a PC that is installed in a kiosk usable by anybody)


question:
In French, if I want to quantify a very small amount of time (but not fixed: it can be 5 ms or 0.1 ms) I can use a pouieme. Is there an equivalent in English? I'm not looking for an expression but for a standalone word. EDIT : In fact, I need to create a c++ class which will measure time and be equal to a 1/600s. In French, pouieme is a cute word which can means a very small but undefined amount of time. The issue is that I must write english code and that's why I would like to find a standalone equivalent.
answer:
A blink of an eye and a split second come to mind. Edit: If you insist on a single word, you'll have to go with an instant, or get creative and change the sentence structure to accommodate a different part of speech, like momentar(il)y.


question:
'Vomit' is not a recent addition to English, and nor does it have a peculiar pronunciation. Yet, the past tense of vomit does not follow the notion that a vowel followed by a consonant and emphasis on the consonant. (For example, past tense of 'emit' is 'emitted'.).
answer:

The crucial thing is that the last but one syllable of 'vomited' has no stress. Not even secondary stress. So the final consonant doesn't double. By contrast, the last but one syllable of 'emitted' has stress (because the last syllable of 'emit' has stress). This issue is raised in this question, to which a good answer is given. Compare: (No stress) marketed, budgeted, edited (Secondary stress) combatted, formatted (Primary stress) patted, petted, pitted, potted, rutted