How do I love thee? Let me count the schwas.Not exactly what Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote in Sonnet 43, but we like it all the same. Why? Because it finally pays tribute to the most frequent vowel sound in English: the schwa. What is the schwa and how does it sound? Simply put, the schwa is a reduced, neutral vowel sound written as an upside-down …
What is the difference between a while and awhile? Few word pairs capture the idiosyncrasies (“peculiar characteristics”) of the English language like a while and awhile do. Both of these terms are expressions of time, but one is written with a space while the other is one word. In fact, these two terms represent different parts of speech. The two-word expression a while is a noun phrase, consisting of the article …
When it comes to writing, this common English word confuses many native speakers who aren’t sure whether to use Earth or earth. Why is this an issue? Earth can be either a proper noun or a common noun. In English, proper nouns (nouns which signify a particular person, place, or thing) are capitalized.
