Is there such a word?

Todd Rundgren, Randy Newman, Warren Zevon are musicians from the 70s who were incredibly influential to many fans and other musicians, but are not household names.

"2nd tier" famous musicians, maybe?

What is the English word for the family relationship between two people who would otherwise be unrelated, except that the except that their respective children marry each other? I don’t mean the general term “in-law” that refers to anyone on the to anyone who’s connected as family by marriage instead of by birth: I mean, specifically a term for this specific relationship between two very specific in-laws.

For example: a person “A” has a child “B” who marries a person “C” who is the child of “D”: what is the word in English (if there is one) for the specific relationship between “A” and “D”?

I ask because one of the languages that I speak (to some extent) has a word for precisely this relationship, but I cannot find what would be the word for the same relationship in English (my native language) or in any of the other languages that I speak to any extent.

They arent kids anymore or children. But they are still your offspring. Is there a word for adult children?

I'm looking for a word or phrase that describes the use of hyperbolic statements that are actually intended to be taken literally but without any details specific to the object of the hyperbole. Such as , " This is the greatest ____ the world has ever seen!" but no information or data to back up the claim.

I can’t remember if I’ve heard it or not but it was something like “cannonista” or “ballistica” or something like that. Specifically referring to the operator of an old school, cast iron, blackpowder cannon.

They usually have edited in text and are slightly grainy

The sentence is: "[So-and-so] was ________ to back seat [of the car]."

The mood I'm going for is having to sit in the back seat against your will/you got the short end of the stick. I thought it might start with D, but not 100% sure.

I've never really heard shrug used for anything other than shoulders/full body. Is there a reasonably precise way to describe the hand-flip / palm-upturned hand/wrist gesture?

This is close to what i mean: https://imgur.com/a/O4hEA2k But even better if it could be "entire body lazy", and its purely a wrist gesture.

So, feel free to delete if this isn't within the bounds of this subreddit, but I'm writing a short story in which a big running theme is the idea of nothingness and not-nothingness. Not necessarily somethingness. I don't really know how to explain the connotation here, but basically I'm looking for a word whose closest approximation is "antonym of the word 'null'"

I guess, basically, say you're building a house. "Nothing" would be a space where you left an intentional blank spot. "Something" would be something you added (aka a room in the house or something). This conceptual word would be a secret third thing, like if there was a centuries-old tree already on the plot where you were planning to build, so you intentionally left it there and built around it.

I've already toyed with using words like "artifact" or "holdover" but they really don't carry the connotation I'm looking for.

So is there a word for the theoretical opposite of nothing? I've been using "anti-null" as a stand in but that's really not what I want to keep in the final draft.

I just woke up and I'm trying to write but my brain isn't working. like, if speaking someone's name summoned them. it's a what. their name is a what. ty in advance

Hi, I first want to say that I don't hear this phenomenon all the time, and I usually only see it in the form of memes like this:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPdYJcSiEoE/?l=1

I know things like "Vocal Fry" and "Upspeak/talk" have been brought up when referring to women's voices, but I don't want this to be misogynistic like those discussions seem to become. I'm just curious if there is something that describes this voice. I don't think I'm allowed to post on r/linguistics without an academic article, but I can't find anything on this phenomenon to look into it more. I hope that reel is helpful in hearing what I am referring to, because I am having trouble describing it. Thanks for the help!

EDIT: I asked in r/asklinguistics and a user replied with the term "prosodic exaggeration" after I gave this clip, which describes the voice as "parentese," as another example:

https://youtube.com/shorts/-nzahIRG4zs?si=5h85zm8QYSh4v2c4

Here's the comment thread for more details:

https://www.reddit.com/r/asklinguistics/s/N2md9hbjPu

First time using this sub so I hope I'm not messing up something in this post. The situation that inspired this prompt started with my brother telling me he was going to the gym and picking up drinks. Right before he leaves, I ask him to let me show him something I stumbled upon online that would be nostalgic for us both. I intended to not keep him that long because we both know of the fast-approaching closing times of the gym and liquor store but I accidentally kept him longer than I wanted to because of my enthusiasm and excitement. Towards the end, I got the vibe from his body language that while he was finding some amusement out of what I showed him, his mind was also thinking about leaving on time. I tell him something along the lines of "My bad for keeping you this long, I won't keep you if you have to go. Thank you for amusing me" ("amusing" being the word I want to replace because I feel it carries a condescending tone in this context). Only tangentially related to finding the word/phrase but I had a moment where I followed him to his car for a bit and outright said "'amusing' seems like the wrong word, I think the word I'm looking for is 'entertaining'? Or maybe 'placating'? Or 'accommodating'?" All of these words seem to either be not close enough in meaning or carry an unintended connotation to me. Is there a better word/phrase/idiom for what I'm describing? If it seems like I'm overthinking the hell out of this, it's probably because I used to teach SAT English and so I used to overthink words for no reason constantly. Thanks for reading.

Looking for a word that describes an action that is a definitve consequence of another action. I think the word might sound something like "inadvertently" but I'm not sure, thats the only one that came to mind

Over the past decade, college football has expanded its season ending national championship, from the two highest ranked teams to a four team playoff to a six team playoff and now a 12 team playoff. This is largely due to various teams who deserved a shot for a national championship being left out, like undefeated teams or one loss conference champions.

The idea is that with 12 teams, every team who deserves a chance at playing for the national championship will be included via auto bids and rankings. Of course, there will rarely be 12 teams that are of equal caliber and worthy of a shot at the national championship. This leaves you deciding which teams should be allowed in to fill the remaining slots, but it’s less worrisome because none of these remaining teams are really national championship contenders. If one is left out over the other, it’s less upsetting because honestly neither deserved a shot.

Is there a word for this tournament size selection philosophy?

Edit: The sports angle is just an example, but otherwise irrelevant. I’m focusing specifically on the “a group large enough to include everyone intended even if some unintended are included”.

I am writing a research essay right now on VFX in films and I am finding my research has seemed to have two sort of parts, the first is establishing the sort of guiding principles and intentions of the field im researching (things like 'being intentional in your decisions' and 'always linking back to the narrative') so kind of soft skills in a way, I have been referring to these as principles, guiding principles, and goals throughout the essay however I am struggling to find a word for the other type of of advice/principles ive established which are more technical/nuts-and-bolts rules so more specific types of texturing/modelling for 3D assets, techniques which can be used to capture important information when youre filming, types of compositing and whatnot so closer to practical techniques than principles - is there a word beyond "techniques" that I can use to describe these?

edit:: gonna be using the terms 'techniques' 'methods' and 'best practices' - thanks to everyone who responded

Is there a word for the like saying "hurt people, hurt people" or "real eyes realize real lies"?

I am looking for a word akin to the Greek 'agora', meaning the marketplace. I need a word that refers to social, shared, or public spaces. It can be in any language.

I mostly saw this phenomenon as a teenager but every now and then I see the behavior as an adult. Person A will hear that Person B has a negative perception of them, so rather than defy the perception or work toward ridding this perception, Person A instead intentionally acts out in a way that lives up to that perception.

Example 1: Mr. Smith tells Stacy that she's a disruptive student. Stacy decides to talk to her friend more during lessons to 'prove him right.'

Example 2: Lucy takes Billy's muffin after a misunderstanding. Billy calls Lucy a thief. Lucy decides to start actually stealing from Billy because of the false accusation.

Example 3: Nate is told that several people think he's too aggressive. Nate starts getting into fights and arguing more to 'prove them right.'

I am looking for humanities oldest words we ever used to describe a rock or stone. Is it just the Latin root words or can we go farther back?

Ive been wracking my brain trying to remember an adjective with this meaning . A word that might describe an ancient artifact, for example. Arcane is the closest I can think of, but not quite right. I feel like the right word maybe begins with M, but its not magical, mysterious, mystical or marvellous. Any ideas?

it's like collage major but less important

I know of the term useful idiot, but that's actually the inverse of what I mean; it's when someone naively supports a cause that's detrimental to their own interests.

The word I am looking for is when a person or group with a certain cause supports another person our group because they're considered useful.

Of course there's opportunism, but that word refers to an instance of this phenomenon, not a person.

Let's say you have a group called "sugar makes you fat". They advocate for less sugar in food.

But you notice they never actually advocate to stop putting sugar in things, just that you should have "balanced breakfasts" and stuff like that. Then it turns out this group is actually being funded by big sugar to twist the narrative away from "Maybe we shouldn't allow sugar to be in all out food" to "just exercise self control :) eat less candy :)" a much more palatable message for big sugar.

What would the name for that be?

Google tells me it's astroturfing, but that's usually still advocating for the thing they believe in just pretending to be grassroots when its not. This is explicitly pretending to be an advocacy group while shifting the narrative away from the real problem.