Anwar wants to know the difference between beside and besides. Old English had the phrase be sidan, “by the side of.” OE side meant the flanks of a person, or the long part of anything. By 1200 the phrase was written as one word and used as both adverb and preposition. One meaning for beside … Read more
Carson Buckingham requests a post on “awake in all its bizarre forms—-awokened???????” The past tense of the verb awake gives lots of people fits. Should it be “awoken” or “awakened”? The same confusion attaches to the verbs awaken, wake, and waken. In modern usage, all of these verbs may be used intransitively or transitively: awake … Read more