Tag Archives: parts of speech
Let’s Talk About a Stick Posted by Gary Locke on Jan 6, 2022
Stick is an English word that can be both a noun and a verb. As a noun, it can be, as the image above implies, a dog’s toy that was once a part of a tree. It can also be another name for a billiard cue, a golf club, a baseball bat, a car’s gear…
Strange Combinations Posted by Gary Locke on Nov 11, 2021
When two or more words are combined to form a new word with a different meaning, we get a compound word. There are three types of compound words. They can be closed compounds, joined into one word, like soundproof. Closed compounds are almost always the combination of only two words. They can be open compounds…
Fewer, Less, and Knowing the Difference Posted by Gary Locke on Sep 3, 2021
In English, we use quantifiers with our nouns all the time. A quantifier describes the number or amount of something within a phrase. Unfortunately, many English speakers confuse their quantifiers, using one when they should use another. Do you mean fewer of something or less of something? This is because many quantifiers are not specific…
Confusing Paronyms and Homophones Posted by Gary Locke on Apr 23, 2021
As confusing and maddening as English can be sometimes, learners and even native speakers have particular difficulty dealing with paronyms. In fact, to make matters worse, we even have trouble figuring out the difference between paronyms and homophones! Homophones are words that sound exactly alike, are even pronounced alike, but have very different spellings and…
Us or We? Posted by Gary Locke on Apr 15, 2021
Welcome to another example of why English may be the most infuriating language in the world. Two of the most commonly used words in English are the pronouns Us and We. They are both first-person plural pronouns which mean a group of two or more people. Yet, they are very commonly misused even by highly…
We Are Many Posted by Gary Locke on Jun 25, 2020
In the past few months, you have probably heard the phrase, “We’re all in this together.” I even wrote a blog about it. But did you know that the English word “we” is a rather unusual word in the linguistic world? This is because English is one of the few languages that does not have…
That or Which? Posted by Gary Locke on Jan 30, 2020
Years ago, this blog addressed the problem of when to use that or which in a sentence. Are they interchangeable? Is there a rule to follow? What’s the difference? Unfortunately, this continues to be one of the most common mistakes in English grammar. In fact, it’s so common that people tend to ignore it. But…