Former US president George W Bush caused linguists much amusement/annoyance during his time in office for his skilful use of tautology. We have Dubya to thank for such unnecessary terms as ‘to misunderestimate’ and for incontestable pearls of wisdom such…
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Yearly Archives: 2017
Confusing commas
Here’s a quick question to exercise your brain: is the following statement true or false? Politicians, such as Donald Trump, are keen to dispense with conventional politics. Congratulations to those of you who said it was false. The above sentence…
Got to dash? Hyphens, en dashes and em dashes
These little lines cause more than a little confusion. Here’s a quick-fire introduction to how to use them. Hyphens Let’s start with hyphens, as they’re the easiest (at least in theory!). Hyphens are used exclusively to join parts of words,…
Tagged with: compound words, dash, dashes, em dash, em rule, en dash, en rule, hyphen, hyphenation, hyphens, modifier, modifiers
Posted in Proofreading/copy-editing, Punctuation
Posted in Proofreading/copy-editing, Punctuation
Making words mean what you want
‘[…] There’s glory for you!’ [Humpty Dumpty said.] ‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”’ Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’ ‘But “glory”…
Tagged with: commonly confused words, frequently confused words, meaning, semantics
Posted in Etymology, Grammar, Vocabulary
Posted in Etymology, Grammar, Vocabulary
‘I before E except after C’ – techniques for remembering tricky spellings
It may have the olde-worlde ring of a quaint but questionable proverb, and has indeed been much maligned in recent years, but there’s more truth to this well-known rule than initially meets the eye (or E). Here, we take a…
Tagged with: mnemonic, mnemonics, spelling rule, spelling rules, spelling tips, tips
Posted in Spelling, Vocabulary
Posted in Spelling, Vocabulary