Search results for “Ho”

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 …

Simile A form of expression using “like” or “as,” in which one thing is compared to another which it only resembles in one or a small number of ways. Example: Her hair was like silk. Metaphor A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate …

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 …

Less and fewer rank among the closest in meaning between two words, often leading to confusion about which to use in a sentence. They both refer to smaller sizes, amounts, or degrees of something. For example, you could say you are looking forward to fewer hot days in the fall and hoping for less snow …

The title of our first article this month was How Did They Get In Here? That article looked at careless mismatches of the normally plural pronoun they with a singular antecedent. We suggested simple fixes. But there is more depth to this topic, and in today's article we'll explore the singular they a little further. In two weeks we'll wind up, at least …

Writers today have problems keeping their sentences internally consistent. This is especially true of print journalists. Because of staff cutbacks at financially challenged newspapers, many articles are proofread hastily, if at all. Combine that with the shocking decline in Americans’ English language skills over the last fifty years or so and you get sentences unworthy …

I received an e-mail from a fellow fussbudget deploring basically. He considers it meaningless and useless, and if you think about it, he has a point. Say any sentence with it and without it, and basically there's no change in meaning (see?). Perhaps the most basic use of basically is as a promise to cut …

That’s right, I admit it. I’m a word nerd. I pick, pick, pick at the way you express yourself. Despite protests of apathy, people of all ages care about how well they express themselves. Deep down, everyone likes to be right about language, and you can even hear little kids teasing each other about talking …

Several of our articles to start the year have focused on tricky word choices, ones that may throw us off simply because we might not be aware of or pay attention to their subtleties and differences. Another pair of tricky, freely swapped words is issue and problem. Most often, we'll use issue to mean problem, …

Recently we’ve been reviewing word choices with nuances worthy of noting. Understanding subtleties of meaning and usage makes the instruments in our toolboxes even sharper for precise and eloquent writing. Today we’ll look at another English-usage item that can sometimes be tricky even for experienced communicators. When using the word number as a collective noun for countable …