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tulipflower

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Could you please show me a picture of a square in a city. We also use this concept in our language but I think it has a different sense and use in English. In our language it is like a roundabout/traffic circle in English.
 
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probus

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Here's an interesting little linguistic sidebar. In the Spanish of Europe the central square of a town is "la plaza" but in Mexico it's always "el zocalo". Here is the reason.. Mexico City has an enormous central square, and long ago there was a plan to raise a heroic staue there. The plinth was built but the statue was never erected. In mockery people began referring to the square as "el zocalo", the plinth. What started as a joke stuck and to this day throughout Mexico a town's central square is called the zocalo.
 

White Hat

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Here's an interesting little linguistic sidebar. In the Spanish of Europe the central square of a town is "la plaza" but in Mexico it's always "el zocalo". Here is the reason.. Mexico City has an enormous central square, and long ago there was a plan to raise a heroic staue there. The plinth was built but the statue was never erected. In mockery people began referring to the square as "el zocalo", the plinth. What started as a joke stuck and to this day throughout Mexico a town's central square is called the zocalo.
I kinda like the way you've used the term 'sidebar' here, Probus. It implies 'side note', doesn't it?
 

probus

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Sidebar is used in the newspaper business to describe a news story of lesser importance. Personally I'm not familiar with the term "side note".

Also please note that in this forum we use standard English only. Chatlish like "kinda" is inappropriate here.
 

White Hat

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Sidebar is used in the newspaper business to describe a news story of lesser importance. Personally I'm not familiar with the term "side note".

Also please note that in this forum we use standard English only. Chatlish like "kinda" is inappropriate here.
Try this -> "Even though there is a side note about the cat’s siblings, we still know as the reader what the main subject of the sentence is, which is the cat" (by Matthew Becker; https://www.studiosity.com/blog/grammar-gripes-the-most-common-grammatical-mistakes). And thank you for the term 'chatlish'!
 

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@White Hat Did you see the error in the sentence about the cat?

(If you are going to give advice to proofreaders you might want to proofread your own writing.)
 

White Hat

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@White Hat Did you see the error in the sentence about the cat?

(If you are going to give advice to proofreaders you might want to proofread your own writing.)
Is there one? I didn't write it. The purpose of that post was to show that the term 'side note' does exist. Is there an error in the sentence I quoted?
 

probus

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No. There is a very small error in your writing which a proofreader should have caught.
 

White Hat

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Probus, would it have been OK to say 'kind of' instead of 'kinda'?
 

probus

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"Kind of" is fine. It is slang, but not incorrect. The error @Tarheel noticed is just a little typo that a proofreader would have caught. Look hard and you'll probably see it.
 

White Hat

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"Kind of" is fine. It is slang, but not incorrect. The error @Tarheel noticed is just a little typo that a proofreader would have caught. Look hard and you'll probably see it.
I don't seem to be able to locate it. Could you please point it out to me?
 

probus

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Is there one? I didn't write it. The purpose of that post was to show that the term 'side note' does exist. Is there an error in the sentence I quoted?
No. On the website you posted a link to. (I always notice that stuff.)

Yes, I know. I was just commenting on the sentence about the cat.
Is there one? I didn't write it. The purpose of that post was to show that the term 'side note' does exist. Is there an error in the sentence I quoted?
You left out a parenthesis, but that's a minor error.
 

Tarheel

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It should say:

The cat, although her siblings are active, chooses to sit quietly in the box.

Or:

The cat, although her siblings were active, chose to sit quietly in the box

They didn't use either one. Instead, they combined the two.

They also talked about sentences they had already mentioned except that they weren't there.
🤔
 

Tdol

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Sidebar is used in the newspaper business to describe a news story of lesser importance. Personally I'm not familiar with the term "side note".

Also please note that in this forum we use standard English only. Chatlish like "kinda" is inappropriate here.
It could be called an aside.
 
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