TOEFL READING About the closest any research has come to supporting the tiredness theory is to confirm that adults yawn more often on weekdays than at weekends. I know the meaning of the sentence above, but i don't understand why "about the closest" being put here. can anyone help me to reorganise the sentence to a relatively normal structure? thx!!!

Dorothy Parker quotes I like to have a martini, Two at the very most. After three I'm under the table, after four I'm under my host. what does "under the table and under the host mean"? thx!!:)))

If 50 million people says something foolish, it is still foolish. what does "it" refer to? If 50 million people says something foolish, it is still foolish. this is a famous quote by W. Somerset Maugham. basically, it means that even the majority claimed sth. you should still give it a second thought to see if it's really true as people claimed it to be. the thing is, i can't get this meaning simply by this quote cos it's just one sentence so i wanna know what does "it" here refers to and why people render this sentence the explanation i just mentioned above. thx a lot!

It stinks in here. / it's cold in here. Q: why the prep. "in" should be added here? why dont just use "it stinks here/ it's cold here"? thanks in advance. :)

how many fingers do you have? Q: How many fingers do you have? One of my friends told me that it's actually 8. in that case thumbs are not fingers. is that true? if so then what can thumbs be?

the pronunciation between marry & merry we all know that "man & men" have different pronunciations, which put into phonetic symbols would be like [mæn]&[men]. But yesterday, i saw a post which was posted by an American guy, he said that Mary marry & merry share the same pronunciation. the post is quite interesting but the thing is, marry and merry, their pronunciation is not identical, which if we put it into phonetic symbol would be like ['mærɪ] & ['merɪ], right? That's what i get by checking the dictionary for Chinese learners. And when i listened to the pronunciation of the words in Marriam-Webster dic., the three words sound the same but then i checked them out in Longman Dic., they sound differnent in British accent. i'm really confused about this. pls help me out. thank you.

Everyone & every one Whats the difference between?

Fast&quick What's the difference between them? I know that fast is often used to describ speed and quick for time. What's the fundamental difference between them. And what's their antonyms? Do they share the same antonym?