Sitting day-dreaming in my primary school class one day years ago, I realised the English teacher was saying something interesting about how you could “fry your friend to the end”. A striking image for my then fertile imagination … and a good way to remember how to spell “friend”. And better than that old andContinue reading “Spelling tricks, and how to remember which word to use in English”
Author Archives: whatstheword
The apostrophe, and how to use it
Every time we want to use an apostrophe, we should stop – just like the person who made the sign about “Seed Potato’s” should have. We should think about it, keeping our fingers well away from the apostrophe key. We should consider whether we want to change a singular into a plural, whether we want to shorten a word, or whether we want to show possession.
The puzzle of plurals
If one dairy animal that gives you milk is a cow, and two such animals are “cows”, you could be forgiven for thinking that if one little four-legged animal that gives you wool is sheep, two of them would be sheeps. You would be forgiven, but you’d still be wrong. English is like that. ItContinue reading “The puzzle of plurals”
Why worry about hyphens?
The central sign above is a good example of why we need to use hyphens. It doesn’t read easy. What is an “Ins”, you wonder. “Walk” is quite often used as a verb. It can also be a noun. In this sign it is part of a compound noun… made up by combining “walk” withContinue reading “Why worry about hyphens?”
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