Words To Describe Disasters
The past few weeks have seen a surge of fevered rhetoric in the media. Here are a few examples: Senator […]
Five Linguistic Oddities in the Media
Here are five usages that caught my attention recently. aye and yea Both aye [pronounced “I”] and yea [pronounced “yay”] […]
Uses of the -ing Participle
A reader has questions about the following type of sentence: “the education chief’s sudden resignation left him scrambling to find a replacement”. […]
List of Halloween Words
A reader asks, Could you comment on Halloween words such as jack-o’-lantern vs jack o’ lantern and Trick-or-treat vs Trick […]
Meanings of “Of Course”
A reader asks about the placement of the phrase, “of course”: Please discuss which of the following is correct: “Of […]
Post-positive Adjectives in English
An often-noted difference between English and the Romance languages is that in English, adjectives precede the noun. English-speakers say “the […]
Cognition and Cognitive Offshoots
Before my use of Facebook, I imagined that, apart from insignificant personal differences, most people I know agreed on matters […]
Hoax, Fake, and Other Words for Deception
It’s a harsh indictment of human nature that we have so many words for deception. (I’m assuming that English is […]
Good vs. Well
The words good and well have been in English since its earliest incarnation. When Beowulf finds the ancient sword in […]
Hindmost
The useful adjective hindmost may be shifting into the territory of the unfamiliar, where words become vulnerable to a change […]
Let’s Save “Critique” vs. “Criticize”
Regard the use of the word critique in the following examples: My boyfriend critiques the way I make the bed […]
The Past Tense of “Lead” Is Spelled “Led”
The past tense of the verb to lead (pronounced /leed/) gives some English-speakers as much trouble as the past tenses […]