The word grit has been in the language since Old English times. It derives from a verb meaning “to crush or to grind.” Both the noun and the adjective have literal and figurative uses. I’ll give the literal definitions first. grit noun: Minute particles of stone or sand, as produced by attrition or disintegration. gritty … Read more
That is an innocuous little word, but it is often a linchpin of comprehension, making the difference between understanding and confusion. Take, for instance, its insertion or omission as a conjunction following verbs such as believe, ensure, and indicate. In the sentence “The seizure of the port will ensure command of the sea and free … Read more
There are many ways to botch the logical organization of a sentence. Here are examples of five variations, along with discussion and revision of each. 1. You can help not only position your organization for success when audited, but you can focus on protecting the sensitive information of your patients. Probably the the most common … Read more
The noun way constitutes the second half of many compound words. Almost all of them, like halfway, are closed, but a couple retain a hyphen or are open. Way, from the Old English term weg (the German cognate retains that spelling), means “path” or “course of travel,” and by extension it refers to a course … Read more
An introductory phrase intended to modify the subject of a sentence is said to be left hanging when the main clause it precedes begins with a reference to a noun that is not the subject of the sentence—hence the label “dangling modifier.” In each of the sentences below, the subject is faulty; the paragraph following … Read more
The element for-, though it stems from the same Proto-Germanic word that gave us the preposition for, deviated from the common ancestor to serve as a prefix meaning “away,” “opposite,” or “completely.” That’s the sense that contributes to the meaning of most words beginning with for-. Notice that these words have in common that their … Read more
Didactic fiction is nothing new. Aesop’s tales are didactic, as are Langland’s The Vision of Piers Plowman, Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Hesse’s Siddhartha, and Orwell’s Animal Farm. The authors of all these works desired to teach readers a lesson about the moral significance of human behavior. The word didactic is from a Greek verb meaning … Read more
The following passage from a newspaper feature alerted me to confusion between the literary term “comic relief” and the idiom “to throw [something] into relief”: Inside, the obituary request for humane society donations comes into comic relief. There’s a Jack Russell and a King Charles, a cockatoo Miss Peepers and a cage full of finches. … Read more
One of the latest business buzzwords is disruption, referring to how technology-centered businesses are operating differently than their traditional counterparts, as when Lyft and Uber compete with taxi companies or Airbnb cuts into the lodging business (and the rental market). The metaphor of breaking away is apt, as disrupt, like any word with the root … Read more
Medium is taken directly from Latin, where, stemming from the adjective medius, it meant “middle,” “center,” or “interval.” It preserves that meaning but also acquired the sense of “intermediate agent” or “communication channel.” The primary connotation is now of a substance through which something else moves, whether in a scientific context or in terms of … Read more
When two or more words team up to describe something, they’re usually hyphenated to make their symbiotic relationship clear. Each of the following sentences contains a phrasal adjective that should be linked with one or more hyphens; each example is followed by a brief discussion and a revision. 1. Their affair wasn’t exactly the best … Read more
Make sure that when you shoehorn additional information into a sentence, it is being wedged in at a location where its relationship to a word or phrase is clear. Each of the following sentences suffers from ambiguity because of sloppy syntax; the discussions and revisions clear the confusion. 1. Many students let friends and family … Read more