Welcome to the seventh round of the DWT Poetry Competition. If you are one of the participants and noticed something wrong with the formatting/editing of your poem, just contact us and we’ll fix it promptly. Some people are still submitting poems also. Unfortunately we won’t be able to accept them because the deadline has passed. … Read more
In March of 1997, 16 tornados tore through Arkansas, killing 26 people and destroying homes and businesses. At the time I was living in Hot Springs, cowering in the closet. The twister missed us, but thirty miles away, the college town of Arkadelphia was nearly wiped off the map. That March the state legislature quickly … Read more
David asks When to use a or an? a horse, an apple. A SUV or an SUV? The rule is to use the article a before words beginning with a consonant sound and an before one beginning with a vowel sound: a dog an eel an hour Disagreement exists with certain “h” words. For example, … Read more
In the recent economic troubles, we’ve grown used to hearing about millions, billions and even trillions of dollars, pounds, euros etc. It’s worth noting, however, that these words do not have a universally-agreed meaning. What one person means by billion can be very, very different from that assumed by another. A thousand is always 1,000 … Read more
Lilach Alkony wonders about the difference between “hard sales” and “hard sells.” The noun phrase hard sell is a U.S. coinage dating from the 1950s. It means “aggressive salesmanship or advertising.” An example is the late night “infomercial” that keeps pounding the viewer with “…and wait, there’s more!” Hard sell can be used as an … Read more
Welcome to another round of the DWT Poetry Competition. In the last round we had a small problem in the voting session. More specifically it seems that one user found a bug and exploited it to vote over and over again. As a result the poll ended with over 15,000 votes! I took a screenshot … Read more
Sweat is one of those Old English words that has dwindled in meaning since Anglo-Saxon times. Back in those sword-swinging times, sweat mean “blood.” By Middle English times sweat had acquired its modern meaning of “perspiration.” In addition to its current literal meaning, sweat enjoys a rich figurative life: sweat of one’s brow This expression … Read more
When I saw “ram-shackled” used to describe a boat. the image of a boat chained to a ram sprang immediately to mind. Both ramshackle and ramshackled are used to describe a building or other fairly large object in a state of extreme disrepair. The word started out as ransackled and is related to such words … Read more
This is a guest post by Debra Wheatman. If you want to write for Daily Writing Tips check the guidelines here. W. Fowler coined the term “elegant variation” to denote the unnecessary use of synonyms to denote a single thing. One of his examples was a newspaper excerpt in which the writer referred to the … Read more
Time for another round of the DWT Poetry Competition. If you want to check the previous rounds just visit the Competitions category page. Previous rounds got over 200 votes each, so thanks for all the readers who are taking the time to read the poems and vote on their favorites. As usual we have some … Read more
Watching an episode of The Good Wife the other evening, I was puzzled by a lawyer character’s use of the word invert. A witness had been murdered. The lawyer was trying to prove that the witness list had been leaked because the last two letters of the witness’s name were “inverted” on the official list … Read more
Chandan writes: I am confused between usage of word ‘LATEST’. Basically, it is being used in two opposite situations: 1. meaning late or last – “Return my book latest by Monday” 2. meaning most recent – “This is the latest book.” How is “latest” is used in 2 opposite contexts? English is often blamed for … Read more