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NKM |
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Advanced Member |
| Retired computer programmer; musician |
| Language in general, English in particular |
| Male |
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Saturday, February 14, 2015 |
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Monday, December 2, 2019 3:42:50 PM |
5,257
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(Actually, that's not what you asked, but I'll answer this new question anyway.)
"A bit of" anything may be "a small amount" of it -- not necessarily a single piece.
A piece of meat can be a large chunk, not just "a bit".
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Intrinsically and literally, there's no real difference.
But idiomatically, "a little bit of" or "a bit of" can simply mean "a little" -- that is, a small amount.
So "a little bit of meat" could refer to a small serving, which might consist of several small pieces.
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Also: "… not to mention …"
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Hi, Romany -
Too bad about that earworm, but nobody ever promised you a rose garden.
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There's a difference of formality between, for example, "grew tired" and "got tired". If you're writing a story or a report you'd more likely use "grew"; in normal conversation you'd say "got" instead.
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Koh Elaine wrote:
I wonder whether "she cut her hair short" is correct. To me, the phrase implies that she cut her own hair.
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To me, the rest of the sentence ("… giving her a fresh take …") suggests that it was the process, not her own action, that mattered. Otherwise I'd have expected "giving herself" instead of "giving her".
Of course, that's not definitive. I'd have preferred "which gave her" (for the sake of clean grammar) but that wouldn't make the "who" of it any clearer.
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If you're concerned about parts of speech, let me say that "short" is really an adjective, even though you might expect an adverb here.
It's the same kind of usage as "Sit up straight" and "Stand up tall."
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Yes, of course it can be done, but in this case I think I'd rather see "Furthermore" or "Besides/Beyond that" instead of "Secondly".
("Also" would fit well here, too.)
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As Romany says, shorter is usually better. (And simpler is almost always better, too.)
That's because the researchers found that clear phlegm very seldom harbored disease-causing bacteria.
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I sometimes feel that nowadays it's a mark of good education to be able to converse at any level at all!
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