Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Username

bubbha

Member Since

December 24, 2011

Total number of comments

110

Total number of votes received

519

Bio

Latest Comments

Do’s and Don’t's

  • December 30, 2007, 6:14pm

Right or wrong, the version I see most in print is "do's and don'ts". Perhaps this is because "dos" looks like Spanish for "two" or Microsoft's precursor to Windows.

What should “I do”?

  • June 23, 2007, 6:24am

The archaic phrasal verb "to do part" means "to separate".

Correspondence

  • June 23, 2007, 6:18am

I would classify "correspondence", in the sense above, as a non-countable noun. I think "correspondences" might be usable in some circumstances, but I can't think of any in which it would be preferable to "correspondence".

Certain words, like "equipment", have no plural form at all.

injecting swear words

  • March 1, 2007, 3:47am

its an in-frigging-fix.

injecting swear words

  • January 23, 2007, 6:31am

Yes, tmesis or infix.

B-ass-ackwards is another example. Unbe-fucking-lievable, isn't it?

Social vs Societal

  • January 23, 2007, 6:27am

"societal" is used by people who are afraid of the word "social" because it makes them think of socialism.

"Homely" means "ugly" in the US, "homey" in the UK. It's as simple as that.

How to ask a question?

  • January 23, 2007, 6:20am

In instructions, there is no question mark, as it's a statement:

"How to operate this machine" means "This is how to operate this machine" or "Here's who to operate this machine".

But in captions in forums and the like, I see it as highly informal yet acceptable shorthand. Elsewhere I would object to its use. It should never be used in "real" writing.

Impact as a noun

  • January 23, 2007, 6:17am

I've mostly seen objections to "impact" as a verb, with the caution that "affect" should be used in its place. Impact most decidedly is a noun, whose verbing is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Social vs Societal

  • November 23, 2006, 5:08pm

I'd say Porsche has elaborated the distinctions that seem right to me. Societal is first listed in the OED for 1898 in fact. And you have the option of the even older world "societary" with a more or less synonymous meaning. Try that one out on your professor perhaps?!