Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Proofreading Services Retired

We’ve officially closed our proofreading services. You can probably guess why. With AI tools like ChatGPT now doing the job for free (and instantly), the demand for human proofreaders has all but vanished. If you still prefer a human touch, you're part of a rare—and shrinking—breed. We're now back to our roots: a forum for nitpicking the finer points of the English language. Thanks for your past support. We appreciate it.

Submit your question here.

Latest Posts : Misc

I thought you could put /s/ on a copy of a signed letter to indicate the original had been signed. Right or wrong?

Read Comments

Can anyone tell me why the second ‘a’ in Canada and Canadian is pronounced differently? 

I’m English/British and I and from England/Britain.

Surely it should either be Can-a-da & Can-a-dian or Can-ay-da & Can-ay-dian...

My guess is it has something to do with the French influence, but I would love to know for sure.

Here in the UK our language has been heavily influenced over the years, including by the French and it has always interested where these things start or change.

Read Comments

I was in empty space in an elevator one day when it occurred to me that it’s actually “pains-taking”, the taking of pains to do something thoroughly. I’d never thought about it before.

But it’s too hard to pronounce “painz-taking”, because the “z” sound must be voiced; whereas the unvoiced “s” combines easily with the “t” to make “-staking”, so that’s what we say. That’s my theory, but BrE might be different. Is it?

Read Comments

Why does the Western media have so many different spellings for some Arabic terms?

eg:

1. hezbollah hesbollah hizbullah hizbollah hisbollah

2. ayatollah ayatullah

Read Comments

I’m having a custom item made to indicate when our home was established.  The year will be the year my husband and I were married and started our family.  My issue is I’m not sure how our name should appear.  Here is the text.

The (LAST NAME)

Est. 2008

Our last name is Myers.  Please help!  I’m not sure if it should be possessive (ownership of the home/family) or plural (for the people).

Read Comments

At the clinic I was directed to the “subwait area” and left to ponder my fate. I did wonder whether this should be sub-wait and how fully portable “sub” has become as a preposition and/or prefix, when attached to a Germanic-rooted word. What other words are there where “sub” is used as an English word, apart from phrases like “sub judice” and “sub” as a short form of “substitute” eg in sport “he was subbed off”?

Read Comments

Can you please comment on a trend that I have noticed recently. More and more people seem to be pronouncing words that contain the letters “str” as if they were written “shtr”. Strong sounds like shtrong, strange sounds like shtrange, and so on. I have noticed even my favorite NPR journalists mispronouncing these words. I first noticed this pronunciation in one of Michelle Obama’s early speeches. I’d appreciate any insight that you might have.

Read Comments

I have always believed, probably in common with most Scots, that the pronunciation of “gill” varies depending on whether one is referring to the organ of respiration in fishes and other water-breathing animals ( /ɡɪl/ ), or a measure of liquid (/dʒɪl/ ), or even one of the many other variations of the word. I was therefore somewhat surprised recently when watching an episode of QI to hear the erstwhile Stephen Fry and his guests use /ɡɪl/ for both the fishy organ and the liquid measure..

Read Comments

Does anyone know if there are rules governing the pronunciation of “a”? It’s either “AYE” or “UH”, depending on the word following. My preference is dictated by how it sounds and how it flows off the tongue, but I have never been able to establish if actual rules exist.

Americans and Australians tend to use “AYE” all the time and sometime it just sounds ridiculous, like...”Aye man driving aye car stopped at aye traffic light”

Read Comments

What diacritic would I use over the word YANA to accent the first a as an “ah” (short o) sound. It is pronounced Yahna. Thanks!

Read Comments

Latest Comments

X as in to exchange. Xchange, right? So it becomes Video Transmission Exchange. "Exchange" is a place where things are being passing back and forth or helped to pass back and forth. Take for example a telephone exchange. "A telephone exchange is called an "exchange" because it acts as a central point where different telephone lines are switched or interconnected, allowing calls to be routed between them. It's analogous to an intersection on a road network where vehicles switch from one road to another to reach their destination. " Google AI]. "Currency Exchanges" leverage the same meaning.

Past perfect with until

Would removing the negation help with clarity? As in:

"She (only) realized she was addicted to nicotine after/when she started smoking 10 cigarettes a day."

One could add 'only' to emphasize the sequence of events.

It so irritating!! The adminsrashion wants conshrushion on schreiber shreet? What?? it is almost at the point of being non-understandable. The ashoshiation is indeshructable, the shtage is set. These are comments I heard on the news tonight. When will this shtop?

Really appreciate how you broke this down. As someone who's just getting into this topic, this post helped clarify a lot of confusion.
Data Analytics Course in Hyderabad

This was such a helpful breakdown of a tricky grammar issue! I’ve often found myself second-guessing whether to use “my” or “mine” in joint ownership situations, especially in sentences like “my and someone’s.” Your explanation made it much clearer. Thank you for sharing this—definitely bookmarking your blog!
interiordesignsinhyderabad

This is useful content about english Full Stack Developer Course In Hyderabad

Sells or sold?

I agree—“sells” should change to “sold” if you’re shifting to the simple past tense. It keeps the tense consistent, making the sentence clearer. Great question!

Interesting discussion! I’ve heard both “I hope you and your family are well” and “I hope you and your family is well,” and always wondered which was correct. Thanks to this post, it’s much clearer now. It’s great to see grammar being discussed with such attention to detail — really helpful!

Sells or sold?

If you're changing the sentence to Simple Past Tense, "sells" should become "sold." So it would be: "I found a pet store that sold ferrets." Both the main verb and the relative clause should reflect the past tense for consistency. check out MERN stack course in Hyderabad

Sells or sold?

If you're changing the sentence to Simple Past Tense, "sells" should become "sold." So it would be: "I found a pet store that sold ferrets." Both the main verb and the relative clause should reflect the past tense for consistency. checkout Mern stack course