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.

[EX 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.
[EX 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.

[EX Q]: Do the English have an ancient (obsolete) verb for the action of the book opening? For example, in Russian we say otkrit' (open the book), but in the Old slavonic the verb razognuti (to unbend the book) was used.
[EX A]: This is a very interesting question. There may not be an old word in English that does what you describe, but it is important to note that the English word 'open' relative to a book meant something different in earlier times. To open a book now usually means to part or spread the cover and the pages into a position so you can read the pages contained in the book. However, books used to be made by folding sheets of paper larger than the page size and they would be sold without trimming the edges, so when you got your new book, it would be 'unopened' meaning that you couldn't turn the pages. You had to 'open' the book with a dull knife (like a letter opener) by ripping along the folds. (This is why some books have ragged edges of the text block, to evoke the memory of those ripped page edges.) The OED has e. transitive. To cut open the leaves of (a book) when they have been left joined along an edge during the making; to cut open (the leaves) of such a book. You will find old books described (by knowledgable book dealers) as 'unopened'. This correctly means that the folded sheets are un-ripped; it doesn't mean that no-one has ever spread the covers and looked inside.

[EX Q]: What is the correct spelling, dammit or damnit? And what is the difference? Just writing this question brings up a red squiggly underneath damnit and the suggestions include dammit and damn it.
[EX A]:
The usage stats from the British National Corpus (BNC) look as follows: ALL SPOKEN FICTION MAGAZINE NEWSPAPER ACADEMIC NON-ACAD MISC dammit 125 3 99 3 8 0 7 5 damnit no results damn it 158 12 137 1 1 0 2 5 And here are the stats from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): ALL SPOKEN FICTION MAGAZINE NEWSPAPER ACADEMIC dammit 763 20 647 60 30 6 damnit 94 2 86 6 0 0 damn it 1307 83 1112 58 36 18 The Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) paints the following picture: (X axis: year, Y axis: incidences per million words)