Discussion Forum
This is a forum to discuss the gray areas of the English language for which you would not find answers easily in dictionaries or other reference books.
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Latest Posts : Coinage
I’ve been listening to Van Morrison’s “Friday’s Child” for quite some time now because I love this song so much. I tried to look up the meaning of ” Friday’s Child” but onbly found a reference to an old rhyme. Can anybody tell me the meaning of the saying “Friday’s Child” and when and why it is used? Many thanks.
Am I alone in despairing when I hear phrases like:
- “We played brilliant.”
- “He did it wrong.” (or more commonly “He done it wrong.”)
- “He behaved stupid.”
Some people think that there is a difference in meaning between “in that regard” and “in that respect”, some believe that a lot of phrases using “regard” or “regards” are in fact making inappropriate use of the word, and of course some think there is nothing wrong with such usage.
Does anyone else think that the phrase “In that regard” is overused and misused?
Is there any defense of capitalizing after a semicolon? This reads well to me:
We do not sell tricycles; We sell velocipedes.
Learn the difference.
Not capitalizing the first word of the second clause diminishes the perceived parallelism:
We do not sell tricycles; we sell velocipedes.
The store around the corner sells bicycles.
With a period between them, the first two clauses read like the premises of a syllogism:
We do not sell tricycles. We sell velocipedes.
Do we sell unicycles?
I will continue, of course, to pen as I please, but, in this instance, wonder if I can confidently publish as I please.
Is separating two coordinating-conjunction-linked sentences, the former having a comma(s), with a semicolon instead of a comma logically justified?
In GrammarBook.com’s Semicolons category, Rule 5. reads:
Use the semicolon between two sentences joined by a coordinating conjunction when one or more commas appear in the first sentence.
Examples: When I finish here, I will be glad to help you; and that is a promise I will keep.
If she can, she will attempt that feat; and if her husband is able, he will be there to see her.
The AP Stylebook today announced that electronic mail is now spelled without a hyphen: email. Finally. I personally haven’t used “e-mail” in about a decade. We have a thread here on this topic of how to properly spell email.
http://painintheenglish.com/case/4463
At the time, I commented that it may take another 10 years for this to settle, but it took less than a year!
How does one know exactly when a word is supposed to end with -“ise” vs -“ize” in Oxford spelling?
Onamography is a writing technique that involves creatively incorporating proper nouns (company names, celebrities, etc.) in regular English sentences.
A few examples to clarify the concept:
Onnicle 1: The man at the bar acknowledged that he found the job amateurish. Onnicle 2: The SMS said..Bob ill. The rag ate sick shellfish!
The first sentence has ‘Barack Obama’ embedded in it and the second one has Bill Gates. The concept can be extended to include multiple names in a paragraph.
I’ve been trying to find out if there is already a technical name in English to describe it. Onamography is a coined word (Greek origin: onuma --> name, graphe --> writing) as I couldn’t find anything else that comes close to describing the concept.
Any inputs?
Have you noticed that, at trendy cafes, more than half of the laptop computers you see are the new MacBooks? (Well, at least in New York City.) I don’t mean any MacBook; I’m talking about the latest MacBook (”the brick”). In fact, I believe seeing the older versions of MacBooks is rarer than seeing PC laptops.
If these people are deciding to work at cafes for practical reasons, then the laptop demographic should be much more diverse, with a lot more PCs and older versions of MacBook, but this is not what I see. The demographic is heavily skewed towards the latest models of MacBook. So, I would have to conclude that the reason why these MacBook owners come out to cafes is because they want to show off their brand new MacBooks.
It would makes sense, therefore, to coin a term for showing off your MacBook at a cafe. I’ve struggled with this for a while, and this morning, I decided that it should be “Mac off”.
“Hey, honey. I’m gonna go Mac off at the Starbucks for a few hours, OK?”
“At a cafe in Williamsburg, I saw about a dozen people sitting in a row Mac’ing off.”
“I bought the new MacBook Pro last week, but I haven’t Mac’ed off yet.”
If you have a kid and a stroller, I’m sure you’ve experienced this many times. You hang a lot of stuff from the handle of the stroller, and when the kid jumps out of it, the whole thing topples over.
One of my friends wants a word for this (a verb). I tried to think of one, but I couldn’t come up with a good one. (”Stropple”, for instance, isn’t so good because the sound of it lacks the impact of the actual event.) Can anyone think of one?
Latest Comments
Correct preposition following different?
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- March 7, 2025, 8:47pm
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I will go home.
- keithsalinas
- February 28, 2025, 2:15pm
Your analysis of home as an adverbial modifier rather than a direct object is spot on. In the sentence "I will go home," home functions as an adverb of place, modifying the intransitive verb go. This contrasts with noun phrases like the beach, which require a preposition (e.g., go to the beach).
Interestingly, home belongs to a special category of place-related words that can function adverbially without to, similar to abroad, downtown, or overseas. This pattern has historical roots in Old and Middle English, where certain location words developed an adverbial sense. That’s why we say "go home" but "go to the park"—not due to simple elision of to, but because home inherently carries an adverbial function.
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Past perfect with until
- devidjohan
- February 21, 2025, 11:07am
She **had waited** until the illustrator completed the drawings before publishing her book. The author, using **kids book writing services**, https://bookspublishinghelp.com/kids-book-writing-services ensured the story was engaging and visually appealing. She **had not realized** its impact until parents and children praised its creativity and storytelling after its release.
Past perfect with until
- devidjohan
- February 21, 2025, 11:06am
She **had waited** until the illustrator completed the drawings before publishing her book. The author, using **kids book writing services**, ensured the story was engaging and visually appealing. She **had not realized** its impact until parents and children praised its creativity and storytelling after its release.
Initialisms and Quotation Marks
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- February 20, 2025, 3:14am
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“I have two sons, Bill and Ben”: comma or colon?
- andrewsinn
- February 18, 2025, 10:35pm
I can see how this punctuation dilemma might cause some confusion. When it comes to short lists, like naming two sons, a comma seems more natural, especially since it doesn’t feel like a complete formal list. But for longer lists or when more clarity is needed, such as in legal or formal contexts, using a colon might make sense. It’s interesting to see different perspectives on this! By the way, if you're looking for a fun and exciting way to unwind, you might want to check out https://slotier.com/. With a great selection of games and rewarding bonuses, it's the perfect way to relax after a deep dive into punctuation!
“by the time”
- taleshka
- February 12, 2025, 12:54pm
If I look at this sentence: "By the time he arrived, the lesson had finished". I wonder if it would be enough just to say "the lesson finished", as the time expression of "by the time" seems to clearly indicate what happened first. Am I right or is it 100% necessary to use Past Perfect with the expression?
Treatment of abbreviations and superscript items in full capital case
- smithcarrie96
- February 12, 2025, 7:35am
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Correct preposition following different?
Hello cool
[url=https://google.com]cool[/url]
[cool](https://google.com)
cool