adverb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
describe how/why/what etc
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It’s difficult to describe how I feel.
who/what/why etc do you suppose ... ?
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Who on earth do you suppose could have done this?
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How do you suppose he got here?
Why bother
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Why bother to go abroad, when there are so many nice places here?
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ VERB
ask
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There are even those who ask why they can not be inspected by those who advise them.
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Baptist asked why the easterners invaded their churches instead of heading for the heathen out yonder.
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But also anomalies: a reader asks why we have Yorkshiremen but not Northamptonshiremen.
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In a closed meeting in the home of John Cotton, the ministers asked why she attacked them.
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In 1994 Nicklaus was asked why so few black people made it in golf.
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This puzzles them: they ask why , if they are so rich, life is not easier.
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I hear young people ask why they can not find homes.
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The disease model simply asks why child abuse occurs and how can it be prevented or reduced.
explain
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It also explains why it is virtually certain that Britain's main trunk lines will rely on optical fibre.
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That may help explain why in 1995&038;.
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That probably explains why public opinion is broadly in favour of euthanasia, or at least certain forms of it.
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This would explain why your difficulty might be persisting, but it does not explain why it started in the first place.
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These small variations would explain why galaxies formed into clusters, and stars into galaxies.
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Here I should explain why over a hundred thousand miners were striking against the federal courts.
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It became more difficult for devout persons to explain why unforeseen disaster should overtake a religious group.
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That explains why thrifts continued to buy mortgage bonds even as they sold their loans.
know
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Demanding to know why , he began to shout at her.
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It was all so obvious he didn't know why he hadn't worked it out before.
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He knew he was dying and wanted to know why it was taking so long.
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He wanted to know why he couldn't go to boarding-school like all the others.
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Do you know why that is?
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His silence frightened Carrie and she knew why , suddenly.
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He wanted to know why the dollar was plunging.
remember
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He floundered in panic as, for a brief moment, he could not remember why he was there.
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You need to really remember why you are council members, because you are not doing your jobs.
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Then she remembered why Nahum had come home in a terrible temper and called her unrepeatable names.
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Tonight she remembers why she loves the game.
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I can not really remember why .
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The old remember why the revolution was started and many still hold the original ideals dear, whatever may have happened in between.
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She tried to remember why a gathering storm upset people.
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Usually she could not remember why she had wandered off.
see
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Erlich could see why she wanted to deliver her flowers.
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We shall see why people liked civilized society and why other peoples copied Sumer.
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I could see why - and hear.
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It's not hard to see why even when clean, Kamrok's verses are very funny.
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Indeed, it is hard to see why so many do.
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It's not hard to see why critics hate the film.
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It is easy to see why the conventional wisdom resists so stoutly such change.
understand
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I never could understand why a letter typed with a word processor was any less personal than one produced with a typewriter.
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I never understood why , when I asked one of them a question, the other answered.
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I understood why , after what Rupert had told me.
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He never could understand why we could not do it.
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He cared a lot about other people and could never understand why some one should want to hurt him.
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So you can understand why when you called I wanted to slam down the phone.
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That was when she understood why he looked so strange.
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She was quite unable to understand why she was not allowed to leave.
wonder
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I wonder why he left his car in Barrowclough Road.
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You may wonder why sleeping pills and tranquilizers are on a list of drugs that can cause insomnia.
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He seldom wasted time wondering why people wanted other people dead.
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Lance wondered why no articles were done about how she spent her Christmas.
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From this he deduced that the boiler was too small and this led him on to wondering why the engine was so inefficient.
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You may have wondered why your dentist wears gloves and perhaps a mask when treating you.
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The effect on the jury might well have been to make them wonder why W did not answer if he was innocent.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
(why) must you ...?
I don't know how/why etc
I don't see why not
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"Are you sure they'll let us walk on their land?" "I don't see why not."
My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?
all the more reason why/to do sth
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But that's all the more reason why we should go off this time with a car well filled, eh?
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If some material is lost already, that is all the more reason to stop a lapse becoming a loophole.
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That means there is all the more reason to oppose the willed destruction of old things.
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That possibility is all the more reason to end the conflict soon.
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This is all the more reason to find a more democratic way of deciding the state for the first primary.
how/why should ... ?
not have a clue (where/why/how etc)
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After nine years of marriage to her I did not have a clue myself.
not quite why/what/where etc
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But it is not quite what it seems.
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Only his shoes seemed to be a little too pointed - not quite what men one knew would wear.
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So Feuerbach's sensuous anthropology, much praised even by Karl Barth, is not quite what it seems.
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Somehow we get the feeling this is not quite what Tucson Mayor George Miller had in mind.
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That is not quite what we suggested, which was that it should have regard to affordability.
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The whole situation was very unusual and not quite what I expected it to be.
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They are not quite what I should have expected from a man like Serafin.
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This is not quite what was expected.
what's (all) the hurry?/why (all) the hurry?
what/how/why etc in heaven's name
what/how/why/where etc the hell?
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She admits there are no jobs and wonders what the hell she is doing.
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What the hell does the reaction matter if you want to do it?
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What the hell was he talking about?
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What the hell was she playing at?
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Where the hell have you been?
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Why the hell couldn't you have told us?
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Wondering what the hell he's up to.
what/who/why etc the devil?
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Now what the devil was he to do?
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So who the devil are these two engaging, literate, drug-free chatterers sitting down the pub?
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What the devil are you getting at?
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What the devil does he want?
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What the devil have you been doing to yourself?
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What the devil was he talking about?
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Why the devil do you think I came haring over here?
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Why the devil was she so stubborn?
what/why/how etc on earth ...?
why/how/who etc indeed?
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Actually science depends upon expert witnesses who indeed are not infallible.
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And why indeed should gamesmanship not exist in disabled sport when it is rife everywhere else?
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Meant especially for Prior Robert, I should hazard, who indeed thinks he chose her and ranks as her proprietor.
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The community service that is most interesting is by those who indeed are intellectually productive.