The English Language

[Barry Sandercock]

In that context I think "prepare" would be best.

[Michael Farthing]

What about "charge forward" ?

[Michael Flatt]

blaze a trail
1. Lit. to make and mark a trail. The scout blazed a trail through the forest.
2. Fig. to do early or pioneering work that others will follow up on. Professor Williams blazed a trail in the study of physics.
See also: blaze, trail

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Reference: http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/blaze+a+trail

Trailblazer, noun
1 : a person who makes, does, or discovers something new and makes it acceptable or popular

one of the trailblazers [=pioneers] of rock and roll
technological trailblazers

2 : a person who marks or prepares a trail through a forest or field for other people to follow

Reference: http://www.learnersdictionary.com/defin ... railblazer

[Michael Flatt]

Soheil,

You might find that a specialist language site would provide a better forum to respond to your questions.

Why don't you try the following site which is free to access?: http://english.stackexchange.com/

Also, the English Chess Federation now have an official discussion forum for all things chess: http://www.englishchess.org.uk/Forum/se ... ive_topics

[soheil_hooshdaran]

sorry, What does 'expose' mean in:

Your first defense against weak pawns is to avoid exposing them.

[John McKenna]

Greetings Soheil, whoever and wherever you may be.

To relieve the tedium of the imbroglio we find ourselves in in this tangled thread I will just express a couple of, not very impressive, tangential observations and a question of my own.

The opposite of 'expose' is not impose, (but the opposite of exhale is inhale).
Therefore one would assume the prefix im- is not the opposite of the prefix ex-.
However, the opposite of imposter could be said to be exposer - the latter being the one who exposes (lays open to view and possible attack) someone who pretends to be who or what he is not.
That's a bit of a loose connection when it comes to opposites.

There is, of course, an exception (the opposite of which is not inception, by the way) to every rule, so there exists at least one pair of words - begining with ex- and im- - which are opposites in the true sense. Can you, or anyone else, tell us what those two words are and whether they are the only pair of such opposites or if there are others, I wonder?

John

[Michael Flatt]

export & import

[John McKenna]

Michael, I was thinking of explicit/implicit.
There may be more instances.

[Michael Farthing]

explode and implode

[Paul Dargan]

exhale/ inhale ... I suspect there's rather a lot.

[Michael Farthing]

Look more closely, Paul [imhale or inhale?]

[IM Jack Rudd]

The Latin prefixes ex and in mean "out of" and "in" or "into" respectively, so it's not surprising that they form many pairs of opposites in English.

[John McKenna]

Thanks to the two Michaels, above, a pattern has been revealed.
The letter 'p' is the third letter of each word and its opposite.

Does that imply all such opposites follow that pattern or are there any such pairs of ex-/im- opposites with a third letter other than 'p'?

Maybe not, but there may be at least one other pair of opposites with exp-/imp-.

[Michael Flatt]

Does that imply all such opposites follow that pattern or are there any such pairs of ex-/im- opposites with a third letter other than 'p'?

Just by chance I came across an article on the change of form of Latin prefixes. The article covers all manner of prefix, but I have just extracted those relevant to the discussion here:

e/ex/ef/ec- "out, away"; preposition e/ex.

Rule: ex- before vowels and h, c, p, t; ec- or (assimilated) ef- before f; after ex-, a following -s- may be dropped (exsanguis/exanguis both exist); e- in all other cases.

in/im/il/ir- (French often en/em-) "in, to"; preposition in.

in/i/im/il/ir- "un-"; no preposition; related to non and other nasal negations.

These two prefixes have the same form but a different origin. The same rule applies: il- before l; ir- before r; im- before b, p, m; i- before gn; before other letters in-.

Reference: http://english.stackexchange.com/questi ... e-there-ru

[soheil_hooshdaran]

Thanks to the two Michaels, above, a pattern has been revealed.
The letter 'p' is the third letter of each word and its opposite.

Does that imply all such opposites follow that pattern or are there any such pairs of ex-/im- opposites with a third letter other than 'p'?

Maybe not, but there may be at least one other pair of opposites with exp-/imp-.

not all of them, e.g exclude/include.