The Grammarphobia Blog: I’m a riddle: Am I ridiculous?
Q: Many riddles are ridiculous. Could “riddle” and “ridiculous” be related? A: No, “riddle” comes from rædels, Old English for the word game, while “ridiculous” ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: On jurors and panels
Q: I was in England as part of my sabbatical research and visited an old town hall with a courtroom ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Why the ‘w’ is called a ‘double u’
Q: Are you familiar with a rhyme or riddle about a V who meets a W, and asks why he’s ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Why Old English looks so weird
Q: When you rewind to older states of the language, such as Middle English, most words are unrecognizable and some ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Does a plan ‘gel’ or ‘jell’?
Q: Is it “gel” or “jell”? I offer the following: “There’s a point in the process where things start to gel/jell.” I’ve searched several style ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Better half (the whole story)
Q: I’m curious about “better halves.” When did the term come to mean spouses? A: When “better half” appeared in ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: ‘Shot for a Jerry spy’
Q: In a novel I’m reading, a character in London during World War II says to himself, “Can’t fix anything if ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Are you stumped?
Q: What is the origin of the term “stump” in the political sense? (X stumps for Candidate Y; Z gives ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Whenever Harry met Sally
Q: It seems to be getting more and more common lately, particularly among younger English speakers, to use “whenever” in ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: What’s up, man?
Q: We’ve read that the use of “man” by dudes referring to each other comes from the Jazz Era, when ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: The ‘it’ in ‘lording it over’
Q: I’ve always felt that you need “it” in a sentence like “He lorded it over them.” But I sometimes ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Gentlemen, God rest you merry!
Q: Which is the more traditional version of this Christmas carol: “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” or “God Rest You ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: When ‘pomp’ met ‘circumstance’
Q: An article about the ceremonies following Queen Elizabeth’s death referred to the “pomp and circumstance” involved. “Pomp” I get, ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: On ‘thrice’ and ‘trice’
Q: Are “thrice” and “trice” related? If so, “in a trice” might be construed as “in triple time.” A: No, ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: The subtleties of the silent ‘b’
Q: The terminal combination “-bt” is an odd one, with its silent “b,” and curiously (ignoring variations) the only two ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: A few laps at the laptop
Q: How did the word “lap” get these three different meanings: (1) the “lap” one swims, (2) the “lap” a ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: A tale of two plights
Q: The Merriam-Webster entry for “plight” lists “to put or give in pledge” and “a solemnly given pledge” before the only definition I’m ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Why ‘it’s’ means ‘it is’ or ‘it has’
Q: I can’t stand the use of “it’s” for “it has” in writing. When I see “it’s,” I read “it ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Why you can ‘malign,’ but not ‘benign’
Q: “Malign” and “benign” look as if they should be antonyms with the same parts of speech. But “malign” is a ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Getting down to the bone
Q: In Joe Biden’s first visit to the Mideast as president, he said the connection between the Israeli and American ...
How to Express Uncertainty in English (Everything You Need to Know)
Usually, when we say something in English, we’re making either a positive sentence:“My cat likes eating cake.”or a negative sentence:“My ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: As to ‘as to’
Q: Would you tackle the ubiquitous use of “as to” as the go-to substitute for “about”? I’ve noticed it among ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Rock around the clock
Q: I used to have a coworker who bragged that he “rocked” his opponents in bar fights, meaning he knocked ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: Breaking up is hard to do
Q: I thought I knew the rules for hyphenating syllable breaks, but apparently not. For instance, I assumed that “qu” ...
The Grammarphobia Blog: The invisibilized man
Q: A young man I mentored uses the term “invisibilization” in a Fulbright study about unauthorized migrants transiting Costa Rica ...
