Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. Third person singular present indicative of be.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- An abbreviation of island.
- A northern, and especially Scottish, form of -ish, as in Scottis (contracted Scots) for Scottish, Inglis for Inglish (English), etc.
- An obsolete form of -es.
- An obsolete form of -es.
- The third person singular present indicative of the verb be. See be. The form is was formerly, and is still dialectally, used for all persons of the singular, and in negro speech also for all persons of the plural. Such use in Chaucer, as in modern authors, is in imitation of dialect speech.
Wiktionary
- v. third-person singular simple present indicative form of be.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. The third person singular of the substantive verb
be , in the indicative mood, present tense. See be.
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old English; see es- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“This misses the point that, to a large extent, the west *is* much better at capitalism than the BRICs... the infrastructure we have by way of UK company law, or the big-4 accountants, or the magic circle law firms is simply much more developed, and offers better scrutiny and outcomes than anything else on offer; and we are rightly world leading in many of these areas.”
“English in India as is the case in a great many newly Anglophone regions from the Carribean to Cameroon *is* evolving divergently from the forms used in older historically Anglophone countries.”
“Actually the book is not depressing at least as post-apocalyptic fiction goes, on the contrary it is one of the most pleasurable such I've read; on the other hand *it is* post-apocalyptic fiction so to speak, so if that does not appeal to you or like in my case, it appeals only once in a while...”
"Things We Didn't See Coming" by Steven Amsterdam (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu)
“Perhaps this is just a roundabout way of consoling myself over my French reading speed, by telling myself I can only go up from here if I just put effort, that I'm over the big hurdle already and have only up to go, but it *is* a comforting thought for me.”
“It really is a shame, because the cover they came up with *is* beautiful and I'm sure they could have found something to use it for that would have been appropriate.”
In which I finally talk about that Dragon and the Stars Cover
“Actually, the whole "We Were Promised Jetpacks" meme and it is a meme, at lease enough for it to become the name of a rather good band, is more about the realisation that since science fiction became popular the future we were "promised", 50, 40, 30 years ago can now largely be considered a dead end, and that the one we have *is* in many ways better.”
“In other words, the Man in Black is the good guy and Jacob actually *is* the devil, or at least malevolence incarnate.”
“Nevertheless, as I mentioned in the main post, it is totally impossible to argue that Long et al. does not directly address the evolutionary origin of new genetic information, since the origin of new genes with new functions *is* the origin of new genetic information, since IDists themselves say again and again that functioning gene sequences contain information.”
Random responses to Luskin on evolution of creationism, quotes, and information - The Panda's Thumb
“The problem I was thinking of is that the wave packet group velocity _is_ the particle velocity.”
“Hate is an emotion that means someone would like to see you come to harm….and so far, the people who call for the most harm to be inflicted on others'…..is coming from islamic groups and their "progressive" friends. wsam says:”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘is’.
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Words that can be spelled on an upside-down cal...
Imagine my joy when I was wearing my calculator watch and was first introduced to someone named Leslie - there was exactly enough room on the display for 317537.14.
Edit: I've discove...hi, hello, leslie, sheesh, she, bells, hells, hog, boss, goggles, he, bob and 69 more...
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Things Yoda Says
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lil_grammar_nazi's list
Main list
acerbic, spiteful, vindictive, curmudgeon, dog in the manger, pious, histrionic, unprecedented, bumptious, abscond, abject, accost and 161 more...
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hannah's Words
perpetuity, portmanteau, scintillate, elucidate, surreptitious, reticulate, cavilling, laudatory, milquetoast, inimitable, schadenfreude, ancillary and 212 more...
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him and i
peach, left, alone, abandon, horid, gay, bloody, beautiful, outside, inside, confused, unconditional and 111 more...
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State-of-being verbs
Verbs that establish or connect to the status (condition, state of being, the way something is) of someone or something.
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Resident Pipsiculturalist Makes Huge Ginormous ...
See comments on pipsiculture and homosexuality, which have nothing to do with each other except that I read comments on them at around the same time on the same day.
See also the list ...heterosexuality, homosexuality, agriculture, argumentative, that, article, thus, make, do, the, interesting, like and 106 more...
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zetadiction
words that embody life
hydrae, kleptocracy, curmudgeon, wordie, risotto, qi, pulchritudinous, micropolitan, schadenfreude, neolithic, experimentalist, zeta and 477 more...
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Two years
Okay, I admit it. I made a list of words my daughter knew when she was two years old.
bat, baba, a, abalone, about, acorn, adrienne, after, again, airplane, alison, all and 694 more...
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Acceptable two-letter Scrabble words
aa, ab, ad, ae, ag, ah, ai, al, am, an, ar, as and 89 more...
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Wordnik Words
Words that appear on the home page of Wordnik.
abaci, cabooleat, endomorphic, warfinger, varna, tautological, quesadillia, hub, oceanography, ken, ignimbrite, galactagogue and 110 more...
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I Live a (SOWPODS) Hardscrabble Life
aa, ad, ae, ah, ai, am, an, ar, as, at, aw, ax and 168 more...
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dont know
good direction
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Lizbt's Words
monkey, kitten, puppy, computer, screen, dalek, tardis, cute, dark, cotton, chocolate, sunshine and 125 more...
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bootload's Words
grouse, beaut, ripper, gassit, hack, hacking, twit, spon, goon, rosella, magpie, galah and 184 more...
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aparrish's Words
the, this, and, a, that, i, me, you, him, her, she, he and 96 more...


What say you, sionnach? Any UK editors out there want to weigh in? ;-) Jan 16, 2008
Is one of these technically gramatically right and the other wrong, or is this a case of a legitimate transatlantic double standard? Jan 16, 2008
English ain't for sissies. ;-) Jan 16, 2008
Sincerely yours, A Crusty Old Editor Jan 16, 2008