I have some questions

[linguoboy]

1. There is Queen song named "Only the good die young". This name doesn't make sense to me. If you translate each word into Russian, the sense would be if the sentence wasit would mean "only the best die young". Why did they use "good" instead of "best"? Is this always possible?

2. Another song of theirs called "nevemore" has the line "when you say you didn't love me anymore". I don't understand it, maybe the correct way is:"when you said you didn't love me anymore" or "when you say you don't love me anymore"?

3. A line from the song "you don't fool me" is "don't you be no fool". Maybe the correct way is "dont you be a fool" or "be no fool"?

[LifeDeath]

Thanls you all!
Yes, I know these songs are very good for me. I wonder, i am not native speaker and understanding all english speeches for me is not very easy, sometimes I have a lof of problems with it, so, Is it very easy for you (of course in daily life, but what about songs?) for example from the same "Somebody to love" I guess the line "They say I got a lot of water in my brain / I got no common sense / I got nobody left to believe in" is not easy to understand, isn't it? Or maybe other lines, I don't know.

I heard song "Under pressure" now, I didn't understand the line "Sat on a fence but it don't work" why did they sang "don't" but not "doesn't"? Is that really hurts ears of native speakers?

I had an argument with my friend, there was a sentence "I asked you. Do you want to buy something?" I know the correct way to say is "I asked you if you wanted to buy something", but i think if it is possible to say this "I asked you - do you want to buy something" like one sentence, without pause (dot). Is it possible?

The book "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" is enden these lines:
"" Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was."" (http://www.literaturepage.com/read/doriangray-230.html)
So, what does "was not" mean here? I really cannot understand... was WHAT?

[PiotrR]

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO

[linguoboy]

Thank you all!
Yes, I know these songs are very good for me. I wonder, I am not a native speaker and understanding spoken English speeches for me is not very easy for me. Sometimes I have a lot of problems with it, so, Is it very easy for you? (Of course in daily life, but what about songs?) For example, from the same "Somebody to love", I guess the line "They say I got a lot of water in my brain / I got no common sense / I got nobody left to believe in" is not easy to understand, isn't it? Or maybe other lines, I don't know.

I think it's quite easy to understand provided you know that "water on the brain" is a colloquialism for hydrocephalus.

I heard the song "Under pressure" just now and I didn't understand the line "Sat on a fence but it don't work".

"Sit on the fence" is another figure of speech.

Why did they sing "don't" but notinstead of "doesn't"? Does that really hurts the ears of native speakers?

Some native-speakers might find that grating. Most, though, recognise it as belonging to an informal register often used in popular songs and accept it, even if they wouldn't say that themselves.

I had an argument with my friend. There was a sentence "I asked you. Do you want to buy something?" I know the correct way to say is "I asked you if you wanted to buy something", but i think if it is possible to say this "I asked you - do you want to buy something" like one sentence, without pause (dot). Is it possible?

It's possible as a direct quote. That is, "I asked you, 'Do you want to buy something?'"

The book "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" is endenends with these lines: "Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was."" (http://www.literaturepage.com/read/doriangray-230.html)
So, what does "was not" mean here? I really cannot understand... was WHAT?

"It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was" = "They did not recognise who it was until they had examined the rings".

This construction is called a sentence cleft. It is quite commonly used in English in order to emphasis an element of a sentence (since English has stricter word order than many other languages and cannot always topicalise elements simply by shifting their position).

[ling]

1. There is Queen song named "Only the good die young" so this name doesn't make sense for me if translate each word on Russian, the sense would be if the sentence was "only the best die young". Why did they use "good" instead of "best"? Is it always possible?

1. Here "good" is used as a noun, meaning "good people". So, "only (the) good people die young".

Yes. Similarly: "the rich" (= rich people), "the poor" (= poor people), "the elderly" (= elderly people), "the dead" (= dead people).

[LifeDeath]

Thank you all guys. So I wonder if it is possible to use double "is" for example In the same cleft sentences: "What Anton is is an engineer". Is it possible?

[linguoboy]

Thank you all guys. So I wonder if it is possible to use double "is" for example In the same cleft sentences: "What Anton is is an engineer". Is it possible?

It's not only possible, it's rather common in speech and informal writing. But in more formal writing it's considered poor style.

[PiotrR]

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO

[linguoboy]

But you're not suggesting that "what Anton is an engineer" is correct? It sounds incomplete to me.

No, it's not correct. In more formal style, a pseudo-cleft construction would be avoided altogether, e.g. "An engineer is what Anton is."

Is should add that the main reason why "is is" is stigmatised in formal style is the frequent solecism "the reason is is that" and other cases where "is" is unnecessarily reduplicated. In that sense, you could view the avoidance of "what he is is" as a form of hypercorrection.

[LifeDeath]

Thanks!
When I speak about it
Must I use "hug" or "hold"? And what the difference between these words?(not in dayly spoken english, just in this case)

[JuxtapositionQMan]

In pretty much all cases, hug is to wrap your arms around something in affection, as opposed to the umbrella of hold, which is to grasp in any way.

[linguoboy]

In pretty much all cases, hug is to wrap your arms around something in affection, as opposed to the umbrella of hold, which is to grasp in any way.

I would add the caveat "when used of people". Hug is not infrequently used of things which wrap around something snugly, e.g. "The translucent fabric occasionally hugs the body of the performer, creating a stunning effect."; "The small town hugged the shore, not extending far up the green hills covered with cultivated fields."

Hold would not be appropriate in these circumstances because it would imply that the one object was providing support for the other. That is, a bra can "hold the breasts (in an upright position)", which means that it is supporting them against the pull of gravity. Or it can "hug the breasts", which means it fits against them snugly; whether it also provides support in the process is left unanswered.

[LifeDeath]

Thanks.
What is the difference between "worth" and "worthwhile" ?

[linguoboy]

What is the difference between "worth" and "worthwhile" ?

Quite a bit. Here's the definition of worthwhile from Wiktionary: "Good and important enough to spend time, effort, or money on." It's an ordinary gradable adjective which can be used attributively or predicatively. (E.g "Which is more worthwhile for a developer career?", "The most worthwhile things in life are often the most difficult.")

The usage of worth is considerably more complicated. Wiktionary rather exceptionally calls it a preposition whereas I prefer to think of it as a predicate adjective which obligatorily takes a noun complement. In addition, worth is also a noun. Cf: "What is a soul worth?" (adj/prep) vs "What is the worth of a soul?" (noun)

[LifeDeath]

Good!
So, what is the difference between "under", "underneath" and "beneath"?

[linguoboy]

So, what is the difference between "under", "underneath" and "beneath"?

Beneath has a literary feel. As a preposition, it sounds most natural to me with abstracts, e.g. "beneath contempt", "beneath the notice of politicians", etc. You can't substitute "under(neath)" here without it sounding very odd. As an adverb, I would call it poetic. A recent horror film was called What Lies Beneath, and the name has a definite pre-modern supernatural ring to it.

I'm having difficulty saying when I might prefer underneath to under in prepositional use. They're basically synonymous, with under being used far more often because it's shorter. Although under can be used adverbially, especially with verbs (e.g. "If you can't jump over it, go under!"), underneath is preferable when there's the notion of covering completely (e.g. "When I moved the newspapers, I found worms underneath") or of the underside of something (e.g. "She is mostly jet black, but pure white underneath"). Underneath can also be used as a noun meaning "underside", which is not possible with under (e.g. "the ugly underneath").

Does that help?

[LifeDeath]

Yes, I really thank you.

I prepared some questions:

1. I asked already about using "will" after "if", I understood it is possible but the sentence must have no condition. So, everywhere in Russia, for the whole my life (school, university, courses, internet) I was told that it is impossible to use "will" after "if" when there's a conditional in the sentence, that it is a very BIG mistake. But if I want to make both part of the sentence in the future and if I use future tense, will it be deadly mistake for you? or not? For example:
"If you will go there tomorrow, I will go too" or "If there will be some money in his pocket(in future) he will tell us that he is happy". Are there situation where it's possible? or not BIG mistake?

2. Again about the end of "The Picture Of Dorian Gray", there's a line "When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty." "a splendid portrait" caught my attention, even the book called "The Picture" so, is there any difference between these two words?

3. The Queen song "Lily of the Valley" has a line: "Messenger from seven seas has flown
To tell the king of Rhye he's lost his throne" What is "he's lost" I wonder, "is" or "has"? If "has" then sentence makes any sence for me, but if "is" I don't know how understand it...

[linguoboy]

1. I asked already about using "will" after "if". I understood it is possible but the sentence must have no condition. So, everywhere in Russia, for the whole my life (school, university, courses, internet) I was told that it is impossible to use "will" after "if" when there's a conditional in the sentence, that it is a very BIG mistake. But if I want to makeput both parts of the sentence in the future and if I use future tense, will it be deadly mistake for you? or not? For example:
"If you will go there tomorrow, I will go too" or "If there will be some money in his pocket(in future) he will tell us that he is happy". Are there situation where it's possible? or not BIG mistake?

There may be some such situation. (It's hard to say "never" when discussing English grammar.) But nothing comes to mind and your examples do not sound natural to me. This isn't a "deadly" mistake in that you'll still be understood, but it definitely sounds non-native.

2. Again about the end of "The Picture Of Dorian Gray", there's a line "When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty." "a splendid portrait" caught my attention, even the book called "The Picture" so, is there any difference between these two words?

[Not sure what the underlined sentence fragment is supposed to mean.]

A "portrait" is a "picture" of a person.

3. The Queen song "Lily of the Valley" has a line: "Messenger from seven seas has flown / To tell the king of Rhye he's lost his throne" What is "he's lost" I wonder, "is" or "has"? If "has" then sentence makes any sense forto me, but if "is" I don't know how understand it...

In this case, "'s" represents "has", not "is".

[LifeDeath]

Thanks.
2. I meant that author wrote "portait" instead of "picture" as book called.
3. "the king of Rhye he's lost his throne" but why not "the king of Rhye has lost his throne"? that "he" sounds excess to me.

[linguoboy]

2. I meant that author wrote "portrait" instead of "picture" as the book is called.

[Better: "as in the title of the book"]

3. "the king of Rhye he's lost his throne" but why not "the king of Rhye has lost his throne"? that "he" sounds excess to me.

Because "the King of Rhye" and "has lost his throne" belong to different clauses. An optional subordinating conjunction (that) has been omitted here. That is, the fuller version would be "To tell the king of Rhye that he's lost his throne". If you omit "he", then the subordinate clause has no subject and that's not allowed in English.