The words militate and mitigate are similar in sound and appearance, with just two different...
Author - Stan Carey
Are you incentivized to use this word?
Many of the words that people love to hate come from business and management. They’re often...
Policing grammar on the radio
Irish politics in late August was consumed by a controversy known as golfgate, in which scores of...
Don’t be piqued by peek and peak
Peek, peak, and pique are homophones that often give trouble to writers, be they amateur or...
Grubbing around for etymology
Grubbing around for etymology The noun grub has two common senses, but the connection between them...
The dinkum oil on ‘fair dinkum’
Some expressions in English are closely associated with particular dialects or regions. Fair...
Dude, where’s my etymology?
‘Take it easy, Dude,’ Sam Elliott says to Jeff Bridges in a scene in The Big Lebowski. Dude is how...
Being bidialectal
We learn language socially, from the people around us. Most of this learning happens in early life...
A complement of compliments
The words compliment and complement, both of which can be nouns or verbs, cause a lot of confusion...
You might should know about double modals
‘You might ought to see the doctor.’ ‘It looks like it might could be.’ ‘You just figured they...