The English Language

[MartinCarpenter]

Just google for thesarurus and lots of options. This one seems to be free: http://www.roget.org/index.htm

No idea how good it is.

[John McKenna]

Roget's thesaurus comes highly recommended and is good enough for me.

[soheil_hooshdaran]

How do you pronounce the name Sefe? he played Petrosian in Vienna 1957

[John McKenna]

You mean Sefc (not Sefe).

Jan Sefc - Czech champion 1955, born 10 Dec. 1924, played Petrosian twice in the 1957 European Team Championship in Vienna (1st USSR, 2nd Yugoslavia, 3rd Czechoslovakia). Sefc had the white pieces in both games, which took place within a few days of each other. Petrosian played the Sicilian both times and won in the ensuing endgames.

If you want to know how to pronounce his name you'd do better to phone a Czech friend. (Unless there's a forumite familiar with the correct pronunciation of that name willing to have a go at trying to do it in writing, here.)

[soheil_hooshdaran]

Oops!right

[soheil_hooshdaran]

What's the difference between a reasonable and a good move?

[Matt Mackenzie]

The two have a bit of overlap, but in general "reasonable" is a rather more measured term than "good".

If you like, its a move that maintains chances rather than one that actually concretely improves the position?

[soheil_hooshdaran]

What does 'Scion' mean in:
bigniew Brzezinski, Globalist Scion, Dies at Age 89

[MartinCarpenter]

That's baffling. The Wikipedia definition looks like what I'd expect: "A scion is a lineal descendant (a son or daughter) of a notable family.".

But you'd normally say someone was a scion of family X, not something like this.

[John McKenna]

Yes, Martin, it is unusual to call someone a "Globalist Scion". Might it imply he was strong supporter of globalisation? Or, more likely, a guardian of the global order that the Pax Americana imposes?

NY Times (yesterday?) - Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter, dies...

"Scion" is an uncommon English word that means "descendant or heir to a family" and "guardian." (Wiki)

Note that in pronunciation the 'c' should be silent, so the result is that 'scion' sounds like 'sigh-on' not 'sky-on'.

It is 'uncommon' in the sense that it is a bit dated and more often used these days in writing (by journalists and authors) than in speech.

I'd hazard a guess that Shakespeare used it in his plays, but that it was in use long before his time as it may be Norman French in origin.

It's meaning has some similarity to the expession "a chip off the old block", but originally meant a cutting from a parent plant.

[soheil_hooshdaran]

What does 'being' mean in:
The pawn, being much more stationary than the pieces, is an element of the structure, the way the array of pawns is placed determines the character of a position and hence also the plan appropriate to it.

[IM Jack Rudd]

It's the present participle of "be"; English uses present participles in that sort of sentence structure.

[Ian Thompson]

What does 'being' mean in:
The pawn, being much more stationary than the pieces, is an element of the structure, the way the array of pawns is placed determines the character of a position and hence also the plan appropriate to it.

... as it is ...

[soheil_hooshdaran]

What about
The pawn, which is....?

[MartinCarpenter]

Not quite, no. If you phrase it that way then you'll often need to slightly rephrase things later on. Probably in this case you'd have to turn the third comma into a full stop.