Friday 28 November 2008

Does spelling accuracy influence your opinion?

This poll is part of a series that Grammarly is running aimed at better understanding how the public feels about writing, language learning, and grammar.

Please take the poll and share your thoughts in the comments. We can’t wait to hear from you!

If you are interested in more, check out last week’s poll.

Tuesday 25 November 2008

10 Wonderful Words to Learn for Dictionary Day

Happy Dictionary Day!

October 16, 1758, was the birthdate of the American lexicographer Noah Webster. If you’ve ever wondered who decided that Americans should write color while the British write colour, Noah Webster is your guy.

To celebrate our love of lexicography, here are ten wonderful words to add to your vocabulary today:

Antipode n. A direct or extreme opposite.

Tuesday 18 November 2008

NFL Fan Grammar Rankings: How does your team stack up?

Geoff Foster, of The Wall Street Journal’s “The Count” sports column, collaborated with Grammarly, the popular automated proofreader, to put NFL fans to the test. Each official NFL team site was analyzed looking at the top 150 fan comments (10,000+ words) for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.

Grammarly ranked all 32 NFL team fan bases from worst to best. Whose smack talk was the most eloquent?

Tuesday 11 November 2008

Aid vs. Aide—What Is the Difference?

  • Aid (as a noun) means “help” or “assistance.” As a verb it means “to help” or “to assist.”
  • An aide is an assistant.

Even though the words aid and aide have similar meanings, are written similarly, and are pronounced the same, they cannot be used interchangeably.


What Does Aid Mean?

Aid can be a verb, a noun, or an adjective. It is synonymous with the words “help” or “assist” when used as a verb, and again “help” and “assistance” when used as a noun:

Monday 3 November 2008

14 Expressions with Crazy Origins that You Would Never Have Guessed

Guest post by Anais John

You probably use tons of expressions, idioms, and slang phrases every day that don’t make literal sense. If you ever thought long and hard about why you say something a certain way, you could probably make a guess. However, some English expressions are so crazy and unusual that it is impossible to guess where on earth it originated from — unless you know the history.

50 Awesome Holiday Words to Know This December

The holidays are upon us, and these winter celebrations with their many traditions each have a rich and varied vocabulary. ...