Most people probably remember that homonyms are words that have the same sound and spelling but have different meaning (”fair” means reasonable and also refers to a carnival). However, heteronyms — which I certainly don’t remember being covered in English 101 — also differ in pronunciation.
Heteronyms are sometimes used in puzzles. Yesterday I noticed a [...]
I was in a meeting recently in which one of the participants referred to China and Mexico as Third World countries because of their economic status. Since my recollection of the definition of the numbered worlds reflected an established politically democratic system as the leading criteria, I needed clarification.
According to the open Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, [...]
No, not that kind of Latin.
One of my life goals that I have had for a very long time has been to learn Latin. Seems odd and a bit geeky, but I already command an expansive grasp on the English language and its grammatical quirks. Learning Latin will serve the dual purposes of helping expand [...]
It is an unfortunate sign of the dismal state of education in the United States when you see rampant misspellings and grammatical errors every day in commerce, advertising, and the mainstream media.
Drive along any downtown street or business district and you will see errors left and right. In my own recent wanderings I noticed a [...]
Did you ever notice how screwed up the English language really is? At first it seems so straightforward, but the endless list of exceptions makes it one of the most (if not THE most) complicated language in the world to learn.
Let’s start simply with the letter “A”. In school children are taught about both the [...]
I mentioned the other day in one of my other blogs about some common mistakes that people make when it comes to writing, not through the occasional spelling mistake or unintentional oversight (which I’m sure abound here!), but just through plain ignorance.
When mentioning abbreviated decades, remember that the apostrophe is used in place of letters [...]
Last night’s Mole II episode featured Heather “greasing the gnome” and everyone on the show was sniggering about it, especially the personable former news correspondent Anderson Cooper. Frankly, I was, too! I asked around the room and at work the next day if “greasing the gnome” was a known euphemism for anything. Although I had [...]
There are pathetic insults like “You are a moron.” There are slightly more colorful insults like “I’d explain it to you, but I don’t have any crayons with me.” And then there’s pure poetry…
I stumbled upon a funny website this morning that highlights poorly misspelled and grammatically incorrect English phrases used in Japanese advertising.
I’m fascinated by language, the English language to be more specific. Word origins, pronunciation, dialects, even the version of the language my two-and-a-half-year-old son Sterling seems to have created.
