A site to help make English grammar more understandable without dumbing down either its significance or its usage.
Can we now relegate the word awesome to the trash heap of misused and abused words? Does [tag]awesome[/tag] even mean anything, or is it like a basic grunt or groan–just a sound to register your mere presence? Frankly, I’m tired of hearing it. "Hey, [tag]dude[/tag], Iran just developed a nuclear bomb and destroyed Israel?" "Awesome!" [...]
No, this is not a variation of Bill Clinton’s question about the meaning of is. Rather, it’s a response to the Academy Awards and its bestowing of an Oscar on Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Now, that film’s subject matter is global warming, which despite media reports and Gorian proclamations has scientists divided. Those who want to cash in [...]
So far, I’ve been unsuccessful in finding any Web sites that detail or discuss words that have been imported into everyday English usage that originated in [tag]rap lyrics[/tag], so I’m opening this for discussion. If you know of any such words, phrases, grunts or groans, please use the commentary function on this posting to let [...]
One of the overlooked aspects in oral English usage is the accompanying body language. I probably shouldn’t say “overlooked” but “undiscussed” or “unstudied.” Sometimes it’s as much how we say something as what we say that gets communicated, so not only should we work on improving our English usage but our body language as well. [...]
No, this is not a new category for my blog, but rather a common phenomenon in English. Two words can sound completely alike, and if we don’t use them frequently enough, we can confuse the two while writing. Case in point:
I have to agree with Charles Barkley, he of basketball fame and of the outspoken mouth, when he told Dan Patrick on his radio show that “the [tag]PC police[/tag] should be taken out back and shot.” I agree, but who are these PC police?
Since I screwed up and used the NotWord morphed in my posting yesterday, I’ve created a new category wherein common and acceptable English words get bastardized into forms and meanings never originally intended. In short, to employ a NotWord (which has been now joined by new category), these words have been morphed. Hence the name for my [...]
There I go–I used a NotWord. I don’t believe morph is a verb, though the dictionary folk may have added it. Naughty me. The word I’m really writing about, however, is [tag]charisma[/tag], which is being bandied and thrown about a lot now that [tag]Barack Obama[/tag] is running for president. What exactly does the word mean?
Check out my English Resources section for a fine article discussing not only the passive voice, but also the use of adjectives and adverbs. Our thanks to Paul Docherty for this useful resource.
In the English classes I’ve taught, and there have been many of them over the years, students have generally struggled over the English usage of [tag]the passive voice[/tag]. If, say, I write an active sentence on the board and ask the class to turn it into the passive voice, what I’ll usually get is a [...]