Because English is blessed with so many subordinating conjunctions, there’s no need to overuse any of them. The conjunction while, for example, tends to pop up in contexts in which a different conjunction may be the better choice. The first and most obvious use of while is as a temporal conjunction to introduce a clause … Read more
These two “doggy” words have quite different meanings. The word cynic comes from a Greek word meaning “dog-like, currish, churlish.” The word became a nickname for a school of Greek philosophers who disdained the luxuries and polite behavior of cultivated Greeks. Cynic is capitalized when it is used to refer to the philosophers. Pronunciation Note … Read more
Latin chorda referred to catgut used to make the strings of a musical instrument. Chorda entered French with the spelling corde and the meaning “string for a musical instrument.” English took the word from French, but eventually dropped the e and spelled it cord. In English, cord came to mean different kinds of string or … Read more
Like the word grammar itself, the grammatical term gerund is often mentioned with a shudder. If you already understand all about gerunds, this post is not for you. If you’d like to review the concept, read on. A gerund is a verbal. If you’ve read previous posts about present and past participles, you know that … Read more
Many depictions of old people on American television–for example, Grandpa Simpson–reflect contempt for the elderly, but the language presents a different picture. The variety of words for “wisdom passed down the generations” suggests a tradition of respect for the experience of one’s elders. I’ve already written about the words proverb and adage. Here are a … Read more
If hearing the word concerning used as an adjective to mean “causing anxiety” gives you a chalkboard moment, you may as well get used to it. The usage has yet to make its way into all the dictionaries, but it has hit the mainstream and it won’t be turned back. For about 200 years, concerning … Read more
A reader who frequents health and fitness sites is disturbed by a lack of professional editing: I’ve noticed that nobody, literally nobody makes a distinction between the noun “workout” and the verb “work out.” On every website, I find statements like “You have to workout three times a week.” So I was wondering if you … Read more
I could hardly believe my ears this morning when I heard a highly educated author being interviewed on NPR about a new book. A graduate of two prestigious Eastern universities, the author talked about “hobbling together” a political alliance. She meant “cobbling together.” Naturally, I hopped on the Web to see if anyone else was … Read more
Paul Krugman, in his capacity of Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, recently felt the need to remind his readers to stay on topic when commenting on his posts. The admonition to stay on topic is found in every article on the subject of web comment etiquette. etiquette: the customary code of polite behavior … Read more
When I first encountered the words suffrage, suffragist, and suffragette, I imagined that they had something to do with suffering. After all, black men and black and white women had to suffer before they acquired the right to vote, didn’t they? Actually, the two words have different origins. Suffer descends from a Latin word that … Read more
The greatest Dude of all is without question Jeff “the Dude” Lebowski. But when did the word dude become a title to aspire to? When I was growing up, dude was a word to denote a somewhat prissy man concerned with nice clothes and clean fingernails. We even used the word as a verb: Well, … Read more
As one of our readers tells her students, writers should rejoice in the present participle because it is one of the rarities of English “rules”: one thing they can count on. Unlike its sibling the past participle, the present participle always has the same ending. Reminder: English verbs have five principal parts: Infinitive, Simple Present, … Read more