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 am writing a technical thesis and find myself using the word the an awful lot. Here are some examples (I spare the technical gibberish): The main purpose of the presented applications is to visualize roses in space. The user can run around and experience the roses from different angles. The position of the roses can be stored in the ROS-fileformat. I tried to ask Google, but it filters out the main word the, which makes it impossible to find anything.
[EX A]: Perhaps use the indefinite article 'a' sometimes instead? Or refer to things in general (or plural) or as mass nouns, so you avoid articles (see the first point here, and see this guide to how you can use nouns without articles). The main purpose of the presented applications is to visualize roses in space. A user can run around and experience the roses from different angles. And clauses to promote flow without always referring to a subject immediately: The main purpose of the presented applications is to visualize roses in space. By running around, a user can experience roses from different angles. Positions of the roses can be stored in ROS-file formats.

[EX Q]: I've heard this joke several times, but I'm ashamed to say I really cannot understand it. It just doesn't seem to make any sense however I look at it. I have a suspicion that it is supposed to be rude, so I'd like to offer my apologies if it causes offence- that is not my intension. Here's the joke: Two nuns are in the bath. Nun1: Where's the soap? Nun2: Yes, it does rather. Edit: I understand the pun on 'where's'/'wears'. But what I don't understand is why that is funny. Several people have mentioned that there is a sexual inference, but I don't understand where it comes from.
[EX A]: 'Why is this funny?' may be one of the hardest questions to answer. Humor is subjective, circumstantial, and, not infrequently, ineffable. Personally, I don't think I'd ever encountered a nun joke before this, as I didn't grow up in a community with many Catholics and nuns didn't really seem relevant to our lives. Thus, like OP, I would never have understood the joke by myself. The other answers show that an understanding of the joke requires some basic cultural assumptions - here, that nuns are secretly lewd (and sometimes, apparently, lesbian). When the one nun asks, 'Where's the soap?', the other takes this as a declarative comment about her current (apparently masturbatory) use of the soap: 'Wears [out] the soap.' The guilty nun then affirms that 'Yes, it does, rather.' Why do some people find this funny? Because they already have a history of finding sexualized nuns funny, and this joke triggers their comic affection for that idea. There are innumerable jokes that similarly necessitate some level of preconceived notion for their humor to be apparent. Let's look, for instance, at this 'dumb blonde' joke: The waiter asked the blonde if she would like her pizza cut into six pieces or twelve. 'Six, please,' she said. 'I could never eat twelve!' Why is this funny (to the extent that it is)? Because its audience has been programmed (probably from a young age) to find the idea that blondes are stupid funny. The joke itself doesn't much matter in its details - it just has to trigger that automatic comic response. Examples abound - jokes about how Jewish/Asian/[insert modifier here] men have small penises, jokes about how 'you might be a redneck if...', and on and on. Ultimately, they're contextual, and no amount of explaining the context will make the joke funny (even if it makes it decipherable).

[EX Q]: Overheard on an elevator today, I didn't realize it was him. Corrected by the know-it-all, He. 'I didn't realize it was he.' The know-it-all then went on a rant about how everybody is a dolt for not knowing that. I swear I have never heard this before in my life. Is the know-it-all correct? If so, why is 'I didn't realize it was he,' grammatically correct? What rule makes 'him' incorrect here?.
[EX A]:
The 'rule' is that the verb to be, in any of its forms, is a copula that takes a predicate rather than an object, hence 'It is I' and other phrases beloved of English teachers in junior schools. There are various theories about the reasons for this, but the truth is that it has become a shibboleth to distinguish those who had 'a proper education' from the hoi polloi who just learned English as they went along. [Another such is to point out that hoi is the definite article in Greek, so 'the hoi polloi' is a tautology; please don't comment to that effect unless you wish to be mocked.] Nobody pretends that this rule is used in everyday speech; Barham's 'Jackdaw of Rheims' has a distinguished audience of prelates and clerics observe a jackdaw His eye so dim, So wasted each limb, That, heedless of grammar, they all cried, 'THAT'S HIM!-- showing that, though you are supposed to know that the 'correct' phrase is 'that is he', you are not expected to use it in moments of stress.