This past Monday I published an American Grammar Checkup post on three difficult punctuation marks so many writers misuse, and I asked if there was anything else I could write about that would help my readers. David B. Grinberg said he’d love to…
OK, You Asked for it — a Lie / Lay Quiz!
For those who regularly find and read my posts, the picture above might look familiar — I used it at the end of yesterday’s post on words that can make us angry when we use them. Laughter, indeed, is a wondrous thing;…
Licker — Limn
It’s Tuesday again! Time for more difficult words — homophones — that we all need to pay attention to! They’re the ones that sound the same (or nearly so), but are spelled differently and have different meanings. Licker (n.): one…
Another American Grammar Quiz!
Good Monday morning to you all! Here in the eastern part of the U.S., we are drying out or digging out after a monster snowstorm barreled through on Friday and Saturday, leaving up to 40″ of white stuff or several…
Quiz on Lie and Lay
OK, folks – are you ready for a truly tough quiz? The verbs to lie and to lay are probably the most confusing verbs in English, primarily because they borrow from each other. And too many speakers and writers do not know…
Lie, Lay, Lain — These Words Are Such a Pain!
These verbs are the toughest words in the English language to master, probably because they are so much alike. And the forms sometimes show up in one of the other verbs . . . so how are we to know?…