Misuse of the terms fewer and less will set off alarms in the heads of many language enthusiasts. According to usage rules, fewer is only to be used when discussing countable things, while less is used for singular mass nouns. For example, you can have fewer ingredients, dollars, people, or puppies, but less salt, money, honesty, or love. If you can count it, go for …
The English language is infamously difficult in part because its spelling befuddles even native speakers as letters take on different sounds depending on what letters surround it. Few letters exemplify this trouble more than the third letter of the English alphabet: C. Think about these words: cease, coin, chic, indict, and discrepancy.
In the comments of our Word Fact post about the difference between affect and effect, Carolyn K. wrote: Please, please, please, I beg you to do Lets vs. Let’s. Every sports team’s media/PR department does it wrong, and it drives me absolutely out of my mind! This lets us address another great topic, since these terms are often confused—let’s figure it out!
What do adverse and averse mean? The adjectives adverse and averse are related. Both come from the Latin root vert- meaning “to turn.” In Latin the word adversus meant “turned toward” and “hostile” and is a direct root of adverse. Averse, on the other hand, emerges from the Latin word aversus, which meant “turned away.” Today, adverse is rarely used to describe people but rather to describe effects …
The letter B was part of the Phoenician alphabet more than 3000 years ago in 1000 BCE. At that time, the letter was called beth and looked a little different, but it made the sound of b and was second in the alphabet. The shape of the letter resembled the floor plan of a house, and the word beth meant “house.” This is pictured below. In Hebrew, the letter was called beth, bet, or bayt which also …
Recently a couple of readers wrote to Dictionary.com with an issue they had with one of our slideshows from a few years ago. They objected to the following sentence: “Speakers tend to use [obviously] … to emphasize their point with regards to things that aren’t necessarily obvious …” Our users told us that the phrases with regards to and in regards to are incorrect, and …
There is quite a bit of mystery surrounding the letter A. From its prestigious first place position to its interesting shape, tracing the first letter of the English alphabet uncovers a history that begins with, of all things, an ox. Where does the letter A come from? The letter A is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph—a western Semitic word referring to the aforementioned beast of burden. Aleph …
What does manic pixie dream girl mean? In 2007, film critic Nathan Rabin coined the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl in an attempt to classify Kirsten Dunst’s role in Elizabethtown. He first described this stock romantic character as a woman who “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” Since the …
Of the four tiers of high school, sophomore is the year that stands out as strange. Freshman, junior, and senior are relatively clear monikers for their associated levels, and it’s funny that in school, the place where you are most expected to know the how and why of everything, second-year students are called by a term whose roots are abstruse. Then there is the problem …
With all the hullabaloo about the figurative sense of literally, language enthusiasts have given much thought to this often maligned term. We’ve even discussed how the metaphorical extension of literally is nothing new—it’s been around since the 1700s—but now we’d like to explore a few other adverbs and their ironic uses. I believe that recent uses of definitely and totally suggest that the linguistic development …
