Hamlet complains of the drunken carousing at Elsinore to his friend Horatio, who asks “Is it a custom?” Hamlet replies that it is and adds, “but to my mind,—though I am native here and to the manner …
Read MoreThis common truncated version of an old saying conjures up visions of poking around in your dessert looking for prizes, but “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” means that you don’t really kno…
Read MoreThe earliest meaning of the word “quick” in English is “alive.” When a baby was first felt to move in its mother’s womb it was considered to have come to life, and this moment was called “quickening.…
Read MoreIn a sentence like “I love this kind of chocolates,” “this” modifies “kind” (singular) and not “chocolates” (plural), so it would be incorrect to change it to “I love these kind of chocolates.” Only …
Read MoreThis expression has nothing to do with tactfulness and everything to do with sailing, in which it is a direction taken as one tacks—abruptly turns—a boat. To “take a different tack” is to try another…
Read MoreA “tad” was originally a small boy, but this word evolved into the expression “a tad” meaning “very small” or “very slightly”: “The movie was a tad long for my taste.” Some people combine this with t…
Read MoreWhen you’re startled by something, you’re taken aback by it. When you’rereminded of something from your past, you’re taken back to that time.
Read MoreA 1952 song popularized the phrase “it takes two to tango”; and it was quickly applied to everything that required two parties, from romance to fighting. Later, people baffled by hearing the phrase u…
Read MoreSomebody who reveals secrets—tattling, telling tales—is a tattle-tale, often spelled as one word: “tattletale.”
Read More<p>Taut means to stretch something very tight to its extreme.</p><pre>"The jump rope is taut hence useless for what you intend to use it for."</pre><p>Taught on the other hand is the past tense of te…
Read MoreBy itself, there’s nothing wrong with the word “ones” as a plural: “surrounded by her loved ones.” However, “this one” should not be pluralized to “these ones.” Just say “these.”
Read More<p>Taunt means to make fun someone or goad them to responding often in an aggressive manner.</p><pre>"We should taunt the dog, its being laying lazily around."</pre><p>Taut is when something is tight…
Read MoreThese two words come from the same Latin root, tenere, meaning “to hold” but they have very different meanings. “Tenet” is the rarer of the two, meaning a belief that a person holds: “Avoiding pork i…
Read MoreA “tenter” is a canvas-stretcher, and to be “on tenterhooks” means to beas tense with anticipation as a canvas stretched on one.
Read MoreWhen comparing one thing with another you may find that one is more appealing “than” another. “Than” is the word you want when doing comparisons. But if you are talking about time, choose “then“: “Fi…
Read MoreI suppose if you wanted to express your gratitude directly to the deity you might appropriately say “Thanks, God, for helping our team win the big game.” More appropriate is something more formal, li…
Read MoreWhen you are grateful to someone, tell them “thank you.” Thanks are often called “thank-yous,” and you can write “thank-you notes.” But the expression should never be written as a single unhyphenated…
Read MorePeople surprisingly often write “that” when they mean “than” in various standard phrases. Examples: “harder that I thought,” “better safe that sorry,” and “closer that they appear.” In all these case…
Read MoreAlthough expressions like “that kind thing” are common in some dialects, standard English requires “of” in this kind of phrase.
Read MoreLike the related possessive pronouns “ours,” “his” and “hers” “theirs” does not take an apostrophe.
Read MoreMany people are so spooked by apostrophes that a word like “they’re” seems to them as if it might mean almost anything. In fact, it’s always a contraction of “they are.” If you’ve written “they’re,” …
Read More<p>Themselves is a reflexive pronoun and is used when the recipient of an action is the subject of the sentence.</p><pre>"They all peed on themselves out of fear when the robbers attacked."</pre><p>T…
Read MoreOne use of “them” for “those” has become a standard catch phrase: “howdo you like them apples?” This is deliberate dialectical humor. But “Ilike them little canapes with the shrimp on top” is gauche;…
Read More<p>Therefore is a conjunctive adverb that signifies something is 'for that or for this' previously stated purpose/cause.</p><pre>"I have so many things to thank him for, therefore, he deserves some p…
Read MoreAlthough only the pickiest listeners will cringe when you say “these are them,” the traditionally correct phrase is “these are they,” because “they” is the predicate nominative of “these.” However, i…
Read MoreUsing the plural pronoun to refer to a single person of unspecifiedgender is an old and honorable pattern in English, not a newfangled bitof degeneracy or a politically correct plot to avoid sexism (…
Read MoreAn archaic form that persists in some dialects is seen in statementslike “I’ll think on it” when most people would say “I’ll think aboutit.”
Read MoreThe expressions “this here” and “that there” immediately before a noun are nonstandard. In standard English it’s not “this here dog” or “that there cat,” but “this dog” and “that cat.” Less casual is…
Read MoreAlthough most of us know the differences between these words peopleoften type one of them when they mean another. Spelling checkers won’tcatch this sort of slip, so look out for it.
Read More“Threw” is the past tense of the verb “throw”: “The pitcher threw a curve ball.” “Through” is never a verb: “The ball came through my living room window.” Unless your sentence involves someone throwi…
Read MoreA throne is that chair a king sits on, at least until he gets thrown out of office.
Read MoreHere’s an error with a very distinguished heritage.When in 1 Corinthians 13:12 Paul tries to express the imperfection of mortal understanding, he compares our earthly vision to the dim and wavery vie…
Read More<p>The idiomatic expression ‘in the throes of passion’ means that you are so overwhelmed by an intimate encounter with someone that you are not thinking clearly or making good decisions. </p><pre>“In…
Read MoreSome common phrases get fused in people’s minds into single words. The phrase “thus far” is frequently misspelled “thusfar.” Hardly anybody writes “sofar” instead of “so far”—just treat “thus far” in…
Read More“Thusly” has been around for a long time, but it is widely viewed asnonstandard. It’s safer to go with plain old “thus.”
Read MoreThe word for a spasmodic twitch or habitual quirk of speech or behavior is spelled the French way: “tic.” You may have to worry about Lyme disease if you get a bite from a tick on your face, but that…
Read MoreYou can build a house out of timber, but that quality which distinguishes the sound produced by one instrument or voice from others is timbre, usually pronounced “TAM-bruh,” so the common expression …
Read MoreThe only kinds of periods meant by people who use this phrase are periods of time, so it’s a redundancy. Simply say “time” or “period.”
Read MoreMathematically literate folks object to expressions like “my paycheck isthree times smaller than it used to be” because when used with whole numbers “times” indicatesmultiplication and should logical…
Read More<p>Times is the product of the previous digit and the following number.</p><pre>"Eighty nine times four equals three hundred and fifty six."</pre><p>Multiply means to grow in number or to increase th…
Read MoreTiramisù is Italian for “pick me up,” and is the name of a popular modern Italian dessert, commonly misspelled as tirimisù, which gives it a slightly Japanese air. The Japanese love tiramisù; but alt…
Read MorePeople seldom mix “two” up with the other two; it obviously belongs with words that also begin with TW, like “twice” and “twenty” that involve the number 2. But the other two are confused all the tim…
Read MorePeople seeking to be up-to-the-minute often indulge in such redundancies as “in today’s modern society” or “in the modern society of today.” This is empty arm-waving which says nothing more than “now…
Read MoreThe traditional expression is “in this day and age,” meaning “right at this moment and during a considerable stretch of time around this moment.” “Today’s day” is redundant: “today” already has “day”…
Read MoreLight-colored rope is called “tow” and someone with very blond hair is called a “tow-head.” Tow-headed children are cute, but a toe-headed one would be seriously deformed.
Read MoreIn some dialects people say “I stayed to home to wait for the mail,” butin standard English the expression is “stayed at home."
Read More<p>Told is the past tense of tell which means to divulge an information to someone else.</p><pre>"Kindly tell him what he’d love to hear please."</pre><p>Tolled on the other hand can be used either a…
Read MoreWhen people want to show they are kidding or have just knowingly uttered a falsehood, they stick their tongues in their cheeks, so it’s “tongue in cheek,” not “tongue and cheek.”
Read More“Hey, Tricia! Ted couldn’t find his parrot so he’s tooken your toucan to show and tell!“ “Tooken” is a non-standard form of “taken.” In fact, there are two past-tense forms of “take” which shouldn’t …
Read MoreConsumers and dealers who call tall floor lamps torchieres undoubtedly think they’re being sophisticated, but the French word is simple torchère (originally meaning “torch-holder”). Because of widesp…
Read More<p>Tore means to cause something to tear or rip into shreds like a whole becoming several parts.</p><pre>"The dog tore my school uniform!"</pre><p>Torn is the past participle of the word, tear which …
Read MoreA path with a confusing proliferation of turns is tortuous (from a French root meaning “twisted”). But “torturous” (meaning painful or unpleasant, like torture) is very frequently confused with it. S…
Read MoreAlthough in baseball a home-run hitter has to touch all four bases while whizzing past, when you propose to linger with someone long enough to compare notes you do all your chatting at a single base.…
Read More<p>Tongue is a flexible muscular organ in the mouth that is used to move food around, for tasting and that is moved to various positions to modify the flow of air from the lungs in order to produce d…
Read More“Toe the line” has to do with lining your toes up on a precise mark, not with pulling on a rope. However if you have to take your kids along when you visit friends, you have them not in toe, but in t…
Read MoreThese two words are interchangeable, but “toward” is more common in theUS and “towards” in the UK. Some people, probably influenced by “forwards,” write “torwards” instead of the correct “towards.”
Read MoreComplains Fred, “Mac kept borrowing my tools to where I couldn’t finishfixing the front porch.” This sort of use of “to where” to mean “so muchthat” or “to the point that” is not standard English. Th…
Read More<p>Tract home is a system of home building used in USA and Canada, in which similar houses are built on a subdivided plot of land.</p><pre>"We live in a tract housing arrangement in my estate."</pre>…
Read MoreNot only do people often misspell “tragedy” as “tradegy,” they mispronounce it that way too. Just remember that the adjective is “tragic” to recall that it’s the G that comes after the A. Also common…
Read More“Travesty” has farcical connotations; it’s actually related to “transvestite.” A disaster that could be described as a farce or a degraded imitation may be called a travesty: “The trial—since the def…
Read MorePeople in business, politics, and education love to turn nouns into verbs; but many of their transformations irritate a good number of listeners. High on the list of disliked terms is “transition” as…
Read MoreEarthquake experts call each vibration produced by an earthquake a “temblor,” derived from the Spanish word for “tremble.” It’s not surprising that many people turn this word into “tremblor,” but jou…
Read More<p>You will be considered triple as smart if you do not write "tripple". "Tripple" is a misspelling. "Triple" is correct.</p><p>Triple means three times something.</p><pre>“The cost of housing is tri…
Read More<p>Tried and True refers to ideas that have been tried out and turn out to be valid.</p><pre>"The ford hypothesis has finally been tried and true."</pre><p>Trite and true on the other hand is an inco…
Read MoreA group of performers is a troupe. Any other group of people, military or otherwise, is a troop. A police officer, member of a mounted military group or similar person is a trooper, but a gung-ho wor…
Read MoreA member of an organizational board is a trustee; a trusted convict is a trusty.
Read MoreAlthough “try and” is common in colloquial speech and will usually pass unremarked there, in writing try to remember to use “try to” instead of “try and.”
Read MoreProbably out of simple absentmindedness, an amazing number of Web pages of educational institutions call for people to fill out a form and “turn it into” some office or official. “Turn into” means “t…
Read MoreEven if your hair gets messed up in a tussle with a friend, it gets tousled, not tussled.
Read MoreSome country names are preceded by an article—like “The United States” and “La France”—but most are not. Sometimes it depends on what language you are speaking: in English we call the latter country …
Read MoreI must confess that I do not myself observe the distinction between “that” and “which.” Furthermore, there is little evidence that this distinction is or has ever been regularly made in past centurie…
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