I have long bewailed the misuse of the word famous to apply to bad people, reminding readers that the word for widely known people of ill repute is infamous. Now I’ve discovered that not only is famous erroneously applied to gangsters and murderers, but now the word infamous is being flung about as if it … Read more
A reader questions the veracity of my saying that English has three main tenses: Most modern grammar writers argue that there are only two tenses in English, past and present. We talk about the future using various modal verbs, including WILL, because we are usually talking about our perception of the future. The example you … Read more
The post was intended to be a straightforward look at the fact that although American and British speakers differ as to the spelling of the nouns honor/honour, humor/humour, and glamor/glamour, they agree on the spelling of the adjectives honorary, humorous, and glamorous. I felt secure in declaring that the spellings honourary, humourous, and glamourous are … Read more
Book titles–and newspaper and magazine headlines–are usually formatted in one of two styles: “up style” and “down style.” Up Style This style calls for capitalizing the first and last words in the title or headline and all “major words” in the title. Not all style guides agree as to what should be considered a major … Read more
A teaching site offers this rule for dealing with “silent k”: “k is often silent before n.” An easier way to retain this information is to forget about “silent k” altogether. In a word like knot, k is not “a silent letter” at all, but part of the distinct phonogram kn. The symbol kn is … Read more
This reader’s lament prompted the recent spate of apostrophe posts: Could you please do a post on possessives versus plurals? I’m seeing this mistake more and more, to the point where I saw someone use an apostrophe for a plural on a billboard. Because people are easily confused by the apostrophe, I have treated possession … Read more
A gerund is an -ing verb form that is used as a noun. Like any other noun, a gerund can function as the subject or object of a verb, or as the object of a preposition: 1. Gardening is my favorite hobby. (noun, subject of “is”) 2. He likes shooting skeet. (noun, object of “likes”) … Read more
The following quotation is from a site devoted to business English. The blogger is explaining the expression “to give a heads-up”: “This is a heads-up” is a very American way of saying, “I’m telling you this now because xyz item is hurdling in your direction and you’re going to need to do something or get … Read more
wether/whether In researching the recent song lyrics post, I came across a comment written by a high school sophomore. (For the information of non-American readers, a high school sophomore is 15 or 16 years of age.) The student said she was writing a research paper on the influence of song lyrics. I certainly hope she … Read more
Back-formation is one of several methods by which new words are added to the language. An often-quoted example is the word pea. Before pea was created by back-formation, English had the singular noun pease. Here are two examples of its early use from the OED, (some spellings altered): All this world’s pride is not worth … Read more
Most English speakers know that the usual way to make a noun plural is to add -s to the singular: boy/boys, knight/knights, house/houses. They are also aware that the plural of few nouns, like child and ox, is formed with the quaint ending -en: children, oxen. The modern convention of forming a noun plural by … Read more
The fashion term “surplice neckline” recently came to my attention. The term applies to a diagonally crossed neckline that creates a deep v-shaped neckline. The surplice style is thought of as a “faux wrap,” a cross-over design that makes the garment look as if it is wrapped around the wearer. Unlike a wrap-around garment, the … Read more