Hey! Get It Right, Can’t Ya?!
I think I know what my first published work is going to be. When I was 10, I started writing a Homonym Dictionary (they call them homophones now). You know what homonyms and homophones are (no, not the nicknames of openly gay individuals nor the earphones they wear with their portable CD players) — they’re […]
That Pallet of Palettes Isn’t Heavy….
Okay, here are three words that sound almost exactly alike, but mean totally different things. Pallet: /PA’ lit/ The slatted wooden box that underlies large shipments; also the shipment itself. A pallet jack is a small hydraulic jack/forklift used to hoick a pallet of goods off the warehouse floor and transport it onto a semi […]
Keep Your Mitts Off My …
Mettle…Metal…Meddle…Medal? This is where poor pronunciation gets us … pure confusion. These four words are so often mispronounced (well, okay, pronounced sloppily) that their misuse in writing is almost as certain as death and taxes. So here’s the easy way to remember how to use them: Metal (/meh-tuhl /) is a noun meaning a substance […]
Serial Killers Don’t Murder Cereals
A cereal killer would be someone who takes the life out of your bowl of porridge. A serial killer, on the other hand, is someone who makes a habit of taking the lives of others according to a pattern. Cereal, you see, is a noun meaning a type of grain product. In Europe, it can […]
When You Need Advice, Ask Someone to Advise You!
The Grammar Guru has been asked to explain the difference between advise and advice, two frequently misused words that should be easy to tell apart. Advise is a verb, meaning “to tell someone what they ought to do.” It is pronounced /ad-VIZE/. Someone advised him not to invest in widgets. Advice is a noun, meaning […]
Don’t Flaunt Your Tendency to Flout the Rules….
… it might make you look silly. Here are a couple of words that are oh-so-frequently interchanged — incorrectly. Flaunt (pronounced “flawnt”) means to ostentatiously display your behaviour, to show off. The little girl who has just gotten a new dress will show off, strutting about and making it obvious to everyone that she knows […]
Y’all Are Making the Grammar Guru Crazy
Okay, look, it’s simple. Hear means to use your ears or your hearing aid to listen to something that is being said. If you agree with someone’s statement emphatically, you say, “Hear, hear!” Here means in this exact place. So you can say, “I can’t hear you because there is a crazed iguana screeching in […]
The Grammar Guru Butts in and Corrects Everyone
I refuse to start pointing fingers or editing everyone’s blogs — I don’t have the time or the inclination to cultivate rabid enemies. But there are a few words that need to be defined so that we don’t keep using the wrong word and making ourselves look silly. Those in the know will notice that […]
Can You Cite the Site Where You Lost Your Sight?
The “site” trio seems to be causing some confusion nowadays, probably as a result of the “shorthand” used by instant messagers. This is another simple problem to unravel. A site (noun) is a place — virtual or actual — like a construction site or a website. To cite (verb) something is to quote from it or […]
The Effects of Improper Usage Can Affect Your Life
“Effect” and “affect” have the unfortunate ability to drive people insane. As homophones (or homonyms), their similar sound makes choosing the correct spelling difficult. But there is an easy way to select the correct one. “Affect” is a transitive verb meaning “to act on, cause change in” or “pretend.” As a verb, it expresses action; […]