Tag Archives: vocabulary
A Disagreeable Word Posted by Gary Locke on Jul 2, 2020
Some days you just can’t win. I stumbled upon a posting on social media the other day which had me wondering if there was any hope for the world. I stared at it in disbelief for several moments, then spent maybe 15 minutes in an effort to disprove what I had read. Sadly, it was…
Affect or Effect? Posted by Gary Locke on Jun 4, 2020
Not long ago, I received a text from an old friend. “Hey!’ he wrote, “Which of these sentences is correct? “It doesn’t have the effect that we were hoping for.” “It doesn’t have the affect that we were hoping for.” I quickly replied that he wanted to use #1. His response was, “Thanks! This is…
Tune In to Broadcasting Vocabulary Posted by Gary Locke on May 28, 2020
A long time ago, I was a disc jockey. In fact, I was a broadcaster on two different continents. It was an odd job because I could spend hours on the air playing music, reading news, announcing the time as it passed by on my shift, reading the occasional advertisement – never really being sure…
Take Me Out Posted by Gary Locke on May 7, 2020
For those of us who have been social distancing for the better part of two months, it’s not unusual to spend some time imagining where we would like to go when this is all over. I commonly see the question, “Where will you go first?” on social media posts. But, as I let my fantasies…
English Words in the News: Coronavirus Edition Posted by Gary Locke on Mar 19, 2020
How’s your week going? The world, it seems, is having a singular experience. That is to say, we’ve never seen anything like this before. Before anyone argues that the so-called Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, or the events surrounding 9/11, were similar, let me stop you right there. The world is far more interconnected than…
When Irregular Verbs Fail Posted by Gary Locke on Jan 16, 2020
Sometimes you’ll hear someone use a verb in the past tense and it just sounds wrong. “I knew it was late as soon as I had woken up.” Woken doesn’t sound or even look like a real word. That’s because its source verb, wake, is an irregular verb. There are regular verbs and irregular…
Top English Language Blogs of 2019 Posted by Gary Locke on Dec 19, 2019
As 2019 comes to a close, it always seems important to reflect on the year past. We all do it, don’t we? Maybe you want to remember those things which made you laugh, the moments of success, special memories of friends and family. What did you learn? What surprised you? And which of these lessons…