DailyWritingTips

The Prefix Co-

If you’re the betting type, and you wager on whether a given word beginning with a prefix is attached directly to the root word or linked with a hyphen, bet against the hyphen: The trend—in American English, at least—is to close prefixed words and compound words. However, you won’t always win, because there are exceptions, … Read more

“Alt” as an Alternative to “Alternative”

The prefix alt-, an abbreviation of alternate, has appeared in the media lately, attached to the word right to denote a political movement supporting nationalism and opposing multiculturalism and liberal immigration policies. Although this prominence is a very recent phenomenon, the term alt-right—or, at least, its full form, “alternative right”—is not brand new: Coined in … Read more

Jump-Starts and Start-Ups

A reference to the name of a law called the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act pointed out to me how easily confusion is created in writers’ minds by varying treatment of hyphenated terms. The verb phrase jump-start, which originated in the 1970s as a slang term referring to the action of reenergizing the dead battery … Read more

The 411 on Numeronyms

Numerals are often used in numeronyms: in combination with other numerals and with letters to represent a word, phrase, or concept. This post loosens the definition of numeronym to also include a numeral without one or more accompanying letters and with or without other symbols. Ordinal numbers can represent something, as when we speak, for … Read more

Latin Plural Endings

Pluralization of Latin-based nouns is a complicated field. Preference for Latin or English plural endings is inconsistent in similarly constructed words, as is the presence of alternative forms at all. Here’s a guide to plural forms for Latin words, identifying, for more than a hundred nouns of Latin origin and a few similarly constructed terms … Read more

Could, Should, and Would

Is it a coincidence that the etymologically unrelated but closely associated words could, should, and would look and sound nearly the same? Mostly yes, with a little bit of no. Could derives from the Old English word cuðe, the past tense of cunnan, meaning “to be able”; the present-tense form is can. The terminal spelling … Read more

Demagoguery and How to Pronounce It

As the 2016 US presidential election campaign slouches toward November, the words demagogue, demagogic, and demagoguery make frequent appearances in the media. For example, in a Sunday morning interview with Rachel Martin, NPR stalwart Mara Liasson remarked on the reaction of other Republican candidates to Donald Trump: “They’re talking about the demagoguery and the authoritarian, … Read more

Selfie and Other Words Ending with -ie

Selfie is the latest addition to a small family of English words using the diminutive suffix -ie as an informal marker. Purely diminutive forms have been around for hundreds of years; puppy, likely borrowed from the Middle French word poupée, meaning “doll” or “toy” (and cognate with puppet), dates from the fourteenth century, as does … Read more

Verbing Family Members

The other day when I saw the words to an unfamiliar modern hymn displayed on a screen, I stumbled over the word Father used as a verb. My momentary confusion was not because a noun was being used as a verb, but because the verbed noun was capitalized. Note: Even though the fathering mentioned in … Read more

Gollum, Epenthesis, and Haplology

As I watched holiday re-runs of the Lord of the Rings movies, I wondered if there might be a term for the way Gollum adds syllables to words. Note: Gollum is a fictional character in The Hobbit and its sequels by J. R. R. Tolkien. In Peter Jackson’s movies, Gollum is played brilliantly by Andy … Read more

Voiced vs. Unvoiced Pronunciation

Two terms I often use when writing about pronunciation are voiced and unvoiced. Apparently they are not as familiar in this context as I assumed they were. A reader has asked me to explain my use of them. In one sense, to voice something is the same as to say or speak it: Homeowners voice … Read more

How To Pronounce Swath and Swathe

When I wrote a post on the confusion between the meanings of the nouns swath and swatch, I discovered that considerable disagreement exists regarding the pronunciation of the noun swath and the verb swathe. NOTE: The noun swath denotes the narrow path of cut grass made by a scythe or mower. The verb swathe means … Read more