If you are having a conversation, are you talking to or talking with someone? Is talking to someone different from talking with someone? Let’s settle the issue.
Some feel that talk to should be used only for one-sided conversations—when a television host addresses the viewers, perhaps, or when a boss reprimands an employee.
Today we celebrate some of the most important people in our society—teachers!
On National Teacher’s Day, it’s customary for younger students to bring their teachers apples or more modern gifts. Of course, the best way to thank teachers is by using the information they’ve taught us. As is evident from the show Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, we are still occasionally missing the mark.
Are you feeling frustrated and unproductive? Like you’re constantly busy but the things that really matter aren’t getting done?
Check out these six time management tips that will help you increase productivity, lower stress, and get you closer to your goals!
There was a day when I looked up and realised that I had become someone who professionally replied to email, and who wrote as a hobby.
Our memories of the books we read as children tend to stick fondly in our minds for years after we’ve grown up. We asked our Twitter followers to share their favorite children’s books with us, and here’s what they said. Whether you have children of your own or you’re looking to recapture a bit of the magic of childhood, there’s something on this list for you:
1. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett 2.
What you see above is a usage example of the verb “ought,” which has two different meanings.
1 “Ought” can indicate correctness or duty, often when criticizing the actions of another.
2 “Ought” can indicate that something is probable.
The verb spell commonly means to write or name the letters making up a word in the right order. Spell is a verb with irregular and regular forms. Spelled and spelt are both common forms of the past tense and the past participle of spell, though with geographical differences.
Learn more about the details of this difference, as well as additional uses for spelt, below.
Scrabble enthusiasts have a lot to look forward to as April 13 – Scrabble Day – approaches. Scrabble, which involves forming words with a set number of lettered tiles on a grid-like game board, is one of the most popular word games in the world. It is available in 29 languages, and has become a household name for families and word enthusiasts everywhere.
For grammarians, playing Scrabble can be a fun way to enhance creativity and polish your spelling.
The Minions have their own movie now, but before 2015, they starred alongside the lovable villain Gru in the Despicable Me movie series. Like all top actors, the Minions deliver many quotes that fans love to repeat. However, the quotes you hear from Minion fans are likely to be things like “Ngaaahaaa! Patalaki patalaku Big Boss!” What does that mean? What language do the Minions speak?
English is anything but a straightforward language. Words that look alike but actually mean something slightly different are a common source of confusion. Take conscious, conscience, unconscious, and unconscionable. All are derived from the same root, so it’s natural to assume that the first two are the opposite of the last two. But use them interchangeably like this and you are likely to confuse (and possibly amuse) your listeners.
Image from LoadingArtist.com
Almost anyone who cares about language and knows about or uses the Internet has been guilty at one time or another of demonizing the world wide web for its effects on the English language. “The Internet makes it easy for people, including professional writers, to publish writing publicly without editing.” “The Internet encourages casual writing and doesn’t reinforce proper writing skills.” “Students would write better if they weren’t on Facebook all the time.” It’s easy to blame the Internet and say that if it didn’t exist, written English would be on solid ground.
As Major League Baseball gears up for the All-Star Game, Grammarly teamed up with The Wall Street Journal once again to see which team has the most grammatically correct fans. We looked at all 30 official MLB team sites and analyzed the top 150 comments for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Each team had an average of over 10,000 words.
The Cleveland Indians hit a home run making the fewest mistakes (just 3.6 mistakes per 100 words) while the New York Mets strike out making 13.9 mistakes per 100 words.
I once worked remotely for a company that had a regular content editor meeting every Friday. That meeting was the bane of my working existence. We’d all gather on a conference call line starting at 10 a.m. We’d arrive with good intentions, but inevitably no one had an agenda and we’d walk away (sometimes hours later) without having reached any actionable conclusions.
Let’s get the bad news over with first: no matter how much you write, it will probably never become the kind of mindlessly automatic task for which you’re fully free to zone out.
In other words, writing steadily for an afternoon will never be as meditative as a long drive down an empty highway. You have to keep filling the progress bar yourself. Seated at the keyboard, every moment a writer spends mentally compiling a grocery list or critiquing the coffee shop’s playlist is a moment that zero writing is done.
Ax and axe are different spellings of the same word. There is no difference in meaning or pronunciation. However, you might be surprised by all the possible meanings these two spellings share. The Merriam-Webster lists three primary definitions besides the cutting tool. Axe also refers to a hammer with a sharp edge for dressing or spalling stone. Musical instruments, such as guitars and saxophones, are also axes.
When talking about things that are small, people use the word mini. For example, a small, short skirt is a miniskirt. A minirecession is a recession with a lesser impact than a full recession.
Let there be no mistake—the comma wields a power far greater than its humble looks might suggest. “You will go you will return never in the battle you will perish” is the most famous example of it. This saying is usually attributed to the Oracle of Delphi, and it is supposed to be an answer to the question of whether or not to go to war. If you place a comma before “never,” the answer becomes a green light.
Writing is a creative and magical process. There’s no telling when inspiration will strike—or what unique conditions will help us access our creativity.
Over the centuries, writers have discovered what worked best for them—no matter how unusual. Agatha Christie penned her murder mysteries in the bathtub while eating apples and drinking tea. Gertrude Stein was known for writing on the go, sitting in her Model T with a pencil and notepad while her wife drove her around running errands.
Summer has simmered down and school is back in session. What better way to keep the summer spirit alive a little bit longer than by encouraging you to pick up some of the top #summerreads from the Grammarly community?
In early September, we asked our Facebook, Google+, and Twitter communities which books they would most recommend from their summer reading lists. We simultaneously ran a survey to get more information about summer reading.
Some people spring out of bed on Monday feeling fresh, relaxed, and eager to get back to work. But I’m not convinced those with boundless energy and enthusiasm are of this world. I woke this morning, dragged myself out of bed, showered in a half-dead daze, and made a beeline for my French press to brew some Sumatra roast. For most of us, getting back into the work week can be rough.
