Search results for “2020”

We conclude each twelve-month grammatical trip with a review of what we’ve studied and learned together. The 2020 master quiz features twenty-five items inspired by the year’s many different GrammarBook articles.

The subject of transmitted disease became relevant for all of humanity in late 2019 with the onset of COVID-19. As the disease spread and infected people all over the world, the word pandemic also gained prominence in our daily communications. English includes different words to convey the geographic scale of disease: endemic, epidemic, and pandemic. …

For some people, punctuation in English might be a fuss over details. For others, it provides vital markers for clear, precise, and eloquent writing. For yet others, a missing apostrophe can represent a great expense. In October 2020, an Australian man claimed in a Facebook post that a real estate agent did not pay his …

In past discussions of who-whom and whoever-whomever, we passed along a handy memory aid: who (and whoever) = they; whom (and whomever) = them.* That's fine as far as it goes, but it goes nowhere unless we can tell a subject (they) from an object (them). One reason that distinguishing between subjects and objects is …

Our regular readers might note that our study of American English periodically includes smaller but still noteworthy items we collect from research and reader correspondence. It's been several months since our last musings on miscellany, so we thought we'd return for more as we approach midsummer 2020. (To review miscellany from the past two years, …

We hope you’re enjoying our exploration of American and British English as much as we are. So far we've considered variations in spelling and vocabulary between the dialects. Our review continues with a closer look at American and Commonwealth grammar. Prepositions Different phrasing involving prepositions between American and British English may not be as pronounced …

The English language is about 1,400 years old. One of the earliest-known English dictionaries, The Elementarie (1582), contained 8,000 words. As of January 2020, English now includes more than one million words—a figure that differs from words accepted in dictionaries, which can range from 170,000 to 470,000 depending on the source. Even if we discuss …

Have you heard that Merriam-Webster chose the word they as the "Word of the Year"? And that it was chosen as the "Word of the Decade" by the American Dialect Society? We are not surprised. You probably recall that we ran three articles in July-August 2019 discussing the singular they (How Did They Get in …

What fun it has been completing another twelve-month trip in our always-running grammatical journey. The year 2019 led us through both familiar and exotic terrain as we considered more of the many parts driving our language. In particular we are grateful for the continuing desire to learn among you, our faithful readers. Your interest and …

Sometimes it can be easy to confuse dashes with hyphens when writing or editing content. For example, you might see text such as 9am-5pm in one reference and 9am–5pm in another. Which is correct? The two different marks do not interfere with our understanding of the intended information; however, one mark is more precise than the other. …