Rats in the language
Rats! If you’ve ever had the problem of rats in your home, you may identify with strongly negative feelings about the small annoying creatures. Thanks to my compulsive TV watching…
Deliciously sedulous : increase your word power
I am catching up with the past, voraciously reading through the pages of William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice with a copyright date of 1979. A literary marvel, the author provides delightful…
Veracity and verocity: why these words get confused
Today we are going to have some fun exploring the difference between veracity and voracity. These words if not heard correctly can be interchanged to disastrous effect. The one has…
English idioms: how they get distorted
The other day, a friend asked, “How do you spell towing the line as in the sense of complying? Is it toing or towing? This is just one of many…
Theft and larceny: correct usage
With so much exposure to people’s dirty legal laundry and equal amounts of televised fictional dramas – Law and Order my personal favourite – I often heard the charge of…
Diving in to the truth about ‘dove’
To me the word ‘dove’ brings to mind the soap brand and the birds referred to in one of Prince’s better known songs, When Doves Cry. So I was a…
Fewer words, but less data: Know the difference between fewer and less
English is a complex language and there is often confusion between words that seemingly have the same meaning but are particular in their usage. Such is the case with the…
Write better English: the difference between license and licence
Writing good English requires a depth of knowledge of the language. English is full of tricks: words that sound the same and are spelled differently and words that are spelled…
