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In order to reinforce a point about ‘double negatives’, my junior school teacher (many years ago!) repeated the following sentence over and over, which stayed in my mind “if you haven’t got nothing, then you must have something”. Double negatives cancel each other out to make a positive. The situation occurs when two negative words … Continue reading
‘Kick the bucket’, ‘spend a penny’ and ‘Tom, Dick or Harry’ are all examples of euphemisms as they are words or phrases that people use to mask what they are trying to say. Graham King in his unique book Collins Improve your Writing says that euphemisms “paint a thick veneer over clarity and understanding” and that … Continue reading
Realising that I couldn’t explain the difference between further and farther (without looking it up) this became the subject of today’s blog. Farther is used when talking about distance, whereas further is used for everything else, according to The Little Red Writing Book by Brandon Royal. Oxford Dictionaries online http://oxforddictionaries.com/ defines farther as “at, to, … Continue reading
Graham King in Collins Improve your Grammar explains that who is a subject pronoun and whom is an object pronoun. Before looking at today’s examples, you must first remember the following: Who must match similar subject pronouns: he/she/they Whom must match similar object pronouns: him/her/them Here are some examples to illustrate what is meant by this: EXAMPLE … Continue reading
I came across the word etymology today when flicking through Bernard C Lamb’s book The Queen’s English which gave me the inspiration to write today’s blog. Etymology is “the study of the sources and development of words” according to the Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus. Studying where words come from, can help with spelling, for … Continue reading
It is common to find tautologies in writing and most of the time it goes unnoticed. The Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus defines tautology as “the use of words that merely repeat elements of the meaning already conveyed, as in ‘Will these supplies be adequate enough?’ in place of ‘Will these supplies be adequate?’“. Graham King in … Continue reading
In British English, some people tend to make the distinction between enquire and inquire as follows: The verb to enquire = to ask (the noun is enquiry) The verb to inquire = to investigate (the noun is inquiry) Examples: I would like to enquire about swimming lessons? She was making an enquiry about swimming lessons. … Continue reading
According to John Seely in his book the Oxford A-Z of Grammar & Punctuation, you use “shall with I and we”, i.e. the first person singular and plural and you use “will with all other persons” e.g. he will and they will. Here are some examples to illustrate this: I shall be at the cinema at 8pm, if you want to join me. … Continue reading
There is a distinct (discrete) difference between the words discreet and discrete although (according to the Daily Writing Tips website http://www.dailywritingtips.com/the-difference-between-discreet-and-discrete/) “both discreet and discrete derive from the same Latin word discretus” which means separated or distinct. DISCREET The Pocket Writer’s Handbook by Martin Mander & Stephen Curtis defines discreet as: Careful Unlikely to attract attention Examples in … Continue reading
“It was raining cats and dogs” is a well-known idiom and although the phrase does mean it’s raining heavily, it has nothing to do with cats and dogs, according to book The Queen’s English. In his book Bernard C Lamb explains that “in idioms, the words taken together have a different meaning from their separate literal meanings”. My … Continue reading
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