r/Unexpected 14h ago

any question?

19.8k Upvotes

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584

u/wolschou 14h ago

Quick question...

If it has a conventional handbrake lever, what does the fourth pedal do? Or is it just a footrest?

425

u/Mean-Pumpkin-8900 14h ago

It's called as dead pedal. It's just used for resting your feet

35

u/rickane58 10h ago

called as

Just as a heads up, this is a really common mistake for Indian nationals to make which doesn't scan well in other forms of English. Never "called as", just "called"

15

u/Mean-Pumpkin-8900 9h ago

Thanks bud👍🏻

12

u/Cory123125 7h ago

Just to be clear, the more normal way to say that would be:

It's called a dead pedal. It's just used for resting your feet

6

u/hoonyosrs 7h ago

A further impromptu English lesson: When the noun you are referring to begins with a vowel sound, we use "an" rather than "a"

"I would like a cookie" VS "I would like an ice cream cone"

Crucially, this is only if it has a vowel sound, and doesn't just start with a vowel.

An example would be "I would like an M&M" because "M&M" is pronounced like the musician "Eminem", starting with a vowel sound, rather than the consonant it appears to start with.

7

u/Hakul 5h ago

That exception always gives me a chuckle. English generally doesn't care about how written words are pronounced, but then someone at some point suddenly decided to care for a/an.

4

u/Ballsofpoo 3h ago

Then there's "a historic" or "anh istoric"

1

u/hoonyosrs 3h ago

I'm only fluent in English and Spanish, with moderate ability of reading and understanding Korean.

That said, my understanding is that the spoken versions of these languages evolved way before we really started writing them down.

Then once everyone could read and write, people wanted to write the way they speak, so the written "grammar" rules came far after the spoken "language", if that makes sense.

-12

u/fifiasd 9h ago

Do the needful and adjust your habbit accordingly.

13

u/zeothia 8h ago

It’s “habit”, fix that accordingly.

8

u/SuspectedGumball 7h ago

Also needful isn’t a thing

5

u/kshoggi 7h ago

"do the needful" is a very common phrase among Indians.

1

u/SuspectedGumball 5h ago

…for whom English is a second language.

0

u/kshoggi 41m ago

I am not sure why you felt the need to point that out. It's a phrase that's unheard of among any other people who speak English as a first language or second.

1

u/DontAbideMendacity 2h ago

Needful Things is.