A good fellow; a trump. A girl whose acquaintance is easy to make, 8. A tag which has been removed by a sophomore from a freshman’s shirt. Fruitcake is an insulting word for someone who you think is strange or crazy (the Macmillan Dictionary). This answer is not in terms of the more conventional notion of ‘first’, ‘second’ etc conditionals.

Eliminating ‘that’ before ‘Bob’ would seem to be more in context with the criticism of the way Bob sounds. Can you please explain to me the difference in meaning between these two questions? It’s because the ‹l› was never really there in any historical pronunciation of English.

It is simpler to understand in terms of what is going on. In the second case, the same response, using ‘would’ is still standard English. It expresses a sort of shocked or appalled disbelief. Or they might have said ‘how could you have done that?

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A relative clause provides additional information about the noun it describes, but it may be considered relevant or irrelevant to the overall point of the sentence. In other words, a restrictive relative clause, which often begins with that, is usually considered essential or restrictive. Relative clauses beginning with which may contain non-essential information and would be considered non-restrictive. That inauspicious occurrence puts «nutty as a fruitcake» very close to the earliest days of «nuts» as slang term for «crazy.» I haven’t found any examples of «So-and-so is a fruitcake» (meaning a crazy person) of comparable age.

Contextual difference between «That is why» vs «Which is why»? duplicate

«For why» (also hyphenated or written as one word) meaning «why» as a direct interrogative was used in Old and Middle English (see the MED’s entry), but it became obsolete sometime around the year 1500. Other senses of the expression (for example, it was used as a conjunction meaning «because») gradually over time all dropped out of use, so the word is completely obsolete and is marked as such by the OED. I believe the usage depends on what the word sounds like it starts with. For example, «an homage,» since the «h» is not pronounced.

• But the two have had a somewhat complicated relationship in the vocabulary of a hostile outside world.
• That inauspicious occurrence puts «nutty as a fruitcake» very close to the earliest days of «nuts» as slang term for «crazy.» I haven’t found any examples of «So-and-so is a fruitcake» (meaning a crazy person) of comparable age.
• «For why» (also hyphenated or written as one word) meaning «why» as a direct interrogative was used in Old and Middle English (see the MED’s entry), but it became obsolete sometime around the year 1500.
• Sometimes we use variants to freshen up our writing, or avoid variance to hammer home a repetitive point.

Answer

This use might be explained from a formula such as «How does it come that …». Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Nutty as a fruitcake Crazy, idiotic, as in Mary’s nutty as why is it called fiat money a fruitcake if she thinks she can get away with that. The adjective nutty meaning «insane» was firt recorded in 1821; the similarity to fruitcake, which literally contains nuts as well as fruit, was first recorded in 1935.

It would not surprise me if «fruitcake» in the sense of «crazy» originated in the longer form «nutty as a fruitcake,» where the tell-tale insignia of insanity were the nuts. In your example, however, «I have flunked the exam, that is why I am attending coaching classes» is a comma-splice. Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

Due to the non-restrictive nature of a relative clause introduced by «which,» the clause is considered a parenthetical, and therefore must be enclosed by commas, parentheses, or dashes. The lack of a comma before «that» helps indicate that the relative clause is necessary to fully specify the noun phrase, and is therefore a dependent clause tied to the preceding clause. So in most cases, «which» requires a comma, but «that» cannot have a comma before it. There is a subtle but important difference between the use of that and which in a sentence, and it has to do primarily with relevance. Grammarians often use the terms «restrictive» and «non-restrictive» when it comes to relative clauses.

• And these are nouns that could make sense with a Why relative pronoun;try it, if you dare, with nouns that couldn’t, like rock, salamander, or durability.
• An instructor whose course is not exacting.
• This means why — or that — can be freely deleted after reason.
• The key thing to have in mind it the difference between expressing something as ‘actual’ and expressing something as potential, doubtful or at least not certain.

This is an example of the second conditional. The second conditional is used for unlikely events. The events you describe may very well be unlikely, depending on the context. It’s not a matter of redundancy; all pronouns are redundant, after all.It’s just that why is very limited in its distribution. This means why — or that — can be freely deleted after reason. I.e, deleting why in the sentences above also produces exactly the same pattern of grammaticality and ungrammaticality.

Do you need the “why” in “That’s the reason why”? duplicate

The reason why is an interesting one, and worth answering. Wikipedia has more on this. Pinning slang down to a certain origin is next to impossible. Fruitcake is not a description I would use for anybody as its meaning might not be clear. A person easily influenced. An instructor whose course is not exacting.

Not quite as limited as how, however.How can’t be used at all as a relative pronoun;one may use that, or nothing at all, buthow (which refers to way) is ungrammatical as a relative marker. Since there are only two tenses in English and neither is marked on modals, they’re considered to be tenseless. There is no «future tense» in English, no matter what you’ve been told in school, since all modals can refer to any time — will is another modal auxiliary and behaves like the rest of them). While many people prefer to avoid redundancy in writing (“Omit needless words”), a little redundancy is often helpful in speech to improve flow and to compensate for the vagaries of hearing and attention span.

Answers

And these are nouns that could make sense with a Why relative pronoun;try it, if you dare, with nouns that couldn’t, like rock, salamander, or durability. «why» can be compared to an old Latin form qui, an ablative form, meaning how. Today»why» is used as a question word to ask the reason or purpose of something.

More important, why refers to an adverbial clause or phrase of some sort in the relative clause — certainly not a noun phrase — and therefore it can’t possibly be the subject of the clause. This is important because relative pronouns that are the subject of their relative clause (like the man who/that came to dinner) cannot be deleted. But adverbial wh-words — like why, where, when, and sometimes how — can’t ever fall into that category. Use a before words that start with a consonant sound and an before words that start with a vowel sound.Other letters can also be pronounced either way. Just remember it is the sound that governs whether you use a or an, not the actual first letter of the word. Since fruitcake itself doesn’t emerge as an insult term for a homosexual until much later, it seems clear that the original emphasis in «nutty as a fruitcake» is on the nuts, not the fruit.

But the two have had a somewhat complicated relationship in the vocabulary of a hostile outside world. The answer depends on what exactly you are trying to express. The key thing to have in mind it the difference between expressing something as ‘actual’ and expressing something as potential, doubtful or at least not certain.

Is there any change in the meaning of sentence if I replace That is why with Which is why? For me both are suitable for the above context and unable to differentiate change in the meaning. 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.