Why was Spook a slur used to refer to African Americans? I understand that the word spook is a racial slur that rose in usage during WWII; I also know Germans called black gunners Spookwaffe What I don't understand is why Spook seems to also mean 'ghos
Why would you do that? - English Language Usage Stack Exchange 1 Why would you do that? is less about tenses and more about expressing a somewhat negative surprise or amazement, sometimes enhanced by adding ever: Why would you ever do that? It is in fact part of a conditional sentence in which the if clause is omitted but implied The implied part could be for example: If you were in your right mind,
Origin of fag (meaning a cigarette in British English) This appears to be speculative, and doesn't necessarily explain why this definition fell into common usage to indicate a cigarette I'm looking for something more concrete indicating what caused it to be used in this context What is the origin of this meaning of the word?
How does pussy come to mean coward? The word pussy is often used to mean "coward" This guy is a pussy and I am wondering why How are woman's genitals related to being a "coward"?
indefinite articles - Is it a usual or an usual? Why? - English . . . As Jimi Oke points out, it doesn't matter what letter the word starts with, but what sound it starts with Since "usual" starts with a 'y' sound, it should take 'a' instead of 'an' Also, If you say "today was an usual day", unless your pronunciation is extremely clear, you risk being misunderstood as "today was unusual day", which will only confuse your listeners
Why is pineapple in English but ananas in all other languages? The question is: why did the English adapt the name pineapple from Spanish (which originally meant pinecone in English) while most European countries eventually adapted the name ananas, which came from the Tupi word nanas (also meaning pineapple)