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

AnWulf

Member Since

June 19, 2011

Total number of comments

616

Total number of votes received

580

Bio

Native English speaker. Conversant in German, Russian, Spanish, and Anglo-Saxon.

Ferþu Hal!

I hav a pilot's license (SEL certificate); I'm a certified diver (NAUI); I'v skydived and was qualified as a paratrooper in the Army (Airborne!); I was a soldier (MI, Armor, Engineer).

I workt for a corporation, was a law enforcement officer, and a business owner.

Bachelor's in Finance; minor in Economics
Masters of Aeronautical Sciences

Strong backer of English spelling reform.

Browncoat

Now I'v written my first novel [ http://www.lulu.com/shop/lt-wolf/the-world-king-book-i-the-reckoning/ebook/product-22015788.html ] and I'm working on others.

http://lupussolus.typad.com
http://lupussolusluna.blogspot.com
http://anwulf.blogspot.com

Latest Comments

“Anglish”

  • March 17, 2012, 6:21pm

I know that min is a great Anglo-word but it has been overshadowed and swallowed up by the Latin min+ words. I tripped over minwhile (also mint-while) in ME meaning a moment/instant ... sure enuff, the etym is given as likely min from Latin minute. Min from AS makes more wit as a "small or slight" while rather than as a "minute" while. Then I found mindom (also MinDom) meaning minimum domain. Anyway, I'm calling both minwhile and mindom out for Anglish noting!

What should be taught in schools is OE ... say about the 7th or 8th grades (12 -13 yo kids) for a year ... maybe another year of ME ... and then let them go on to a tung of their choice. Turn these kids loose with a bunch of OE words and sooner or later yu'll find them being noted again!

“Anglish”

  • March 17, 2012, 5:11am

Here's a good one that should be ground for a fight between Anglo-root folks and Latin-root folks ... OE mindom = smallness from min (small) + -dom. NE mindom = minimum domain. So if one notes OE mindom for minimum (which I did here: http://allpoetry.com/story/9466679-The_Reluctants__SciFi__-_Prolog-by-AnWulf) who gets the credit for the word ... OE or Latin?

On Tomorrow

  • March 17, 2012, 5:02am

@Milan ... read my post just above yours. The right phrase is "on the morrow" OR "tomorrow". When you say "on tomorrow" you're wrongly doubling up on the prepositions. Pick one or the other but not both at the same time!

Silk and Silkworm

  • March 16, 2012, 11:52am

It's not from Latin. It seemingly came into English thru the Baltics.

ORIGIN Old English seolcwyrm

silk
OE sioloc, seoloc "silk" ... ultimately from an Asian word (cf. Chinese si "silk", Manchurian sirghe, Mongolian sirkek) borrowed into Gk. as serikos "silken", serikon "silk". The use of -l- instead of -r- in the Balto-Slavic form of the word (cf. O.C.S. shelku, Lith. silkai) apparently passed into English via the Baltic trade and may reflect a Chinese dialectal form, or a Slavic alteration of the Greek word. Also found in O.N.

Texted

  • March 16, 2012, 10:58am

Regardless of how it is said, "texted" is the past tense. However, I wouldn't be upset if folks changed the verb to "tex" (think of fax) and thus the past tense would indeed be "texed". After all, I don't think that I say the final 't' when I say it as a verb. For that matter, I don't folks often say it when it is the noun "text".

@Ryan ... too late. Text as a verb has been here since the 1590s (in a slightly nother sense):
text (v.)
"to send a text message by mobile system," 2005; see text (n.). Related: Texted; texting. It formerly was a verb meaning "to write in text letters" (1590s).

"Oh, nephew, are you come ! the wel- comest wish That my heart has ; this is my kinsman, sweet. Wife. Let him be largely texted in your love. That all the city may read it fairly ..." — William Rowley, "Woman Never Vext", 1632

of a

  • March 14, 2012, 11:05pm

The better way would be to say, "How long is the wait?" or "How long is the process?".

However, there is nothing wrong with "How long of a wait is it?".

Think of it this way ... Someone says, "It's a bit of a wait." ... The question to the answer is, "How long of a wait is it?"

There's nothing wrong with "of a wait" any more than "of a kind", "of a lifetime", "of a muchness", "of a piece", "of a size", "of a sort", or "of a truth" (all in the wordbook as phrases).

Then I found this on a site for grammar: It would create *too long of a list* to include all the eBrary ebooks that we have on English Usage and Grammar in the list to the right ...

I can't think of a good reason why there shouldn't be a preposition there.

-age words

  • March 14, 2012, 10:56pm

I find "sewerage" to be truly funny:

the provision of ***drainage*** by sewers.
• another term for sewage

Sewage:
waste water and excrement conveyed in sewers.
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from sewer1, by substitution of the suffix -age.

So it went from sewer to sewage to sewerage ... Maybe the next one will be sewerment! lol

oxforddictionaries.com/definition/-age
-age |ɪʤ|
suffix
forming nouns:
1 denoting an action: leverage | voyage.
• the product of an action: spillage | wreckage.
• a function; a sphere of action: homage | peerage.
2 denoting an aggregate or number of: mileage | percentage | signage.
• fees payable for; the cost of using: postage | tonnage.
• informal denoting a large number of something (typically forming nouns whose plurals are correctly formed with -s): decibelage | kissage.
3 denoting a place or abode: vicarage | village.

graduate
1 [no object] successfully complete an academic degree, course of training, or (North American) high school: he graduated from Glasgow University in 1990 http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/graduate?q=graduate

tailorable

  • March 14, 2012, 11:20am

Grammatically, tailorable is fine. However, I think of clothes when I see word. My clothes are tailorable. If yu hav already noted tailor in the document in the sense of "make or adapt for a particular purpose or person" ... then it would be ok. Otherwise, there are other, clearer word that can be affixed with -able:

alterable, changeable, adjustable, adaptable, amendable, revisable, (re)shapeable, refashion, restyle, revampable, reworkable ... the one that I like: tweakable

Nother

  • March 14, 2012, 10:51am

@Goofy ... Actually, I was thinking more of the second etym ... if it is obsolete except in the US then it must hav been noted for a long time and isn't something new. BTW, noþer is found in OE as well but I don't know offhand how it was noted without digging ... No need since you hav already proven the point that with the 1330 quote that it isn't some recent "devolution" of English.

The only "devolution" is that so few today can look at that quote and eathly read it.

@HairyScot ... LOL ... You didn't go there! I could as eathly argue that "American English" has held up better than "British English" with less "deterioration". Let's see ... AE still has "gotten" for the past participle but BE has "deteriorated" to only "got" ... AE still has the subjunctiv: "If I were ..." which seems to hav fallen out of BE where "If I was ..." seems to be the norm.

Most of the bemoaning about the "deterioration" or "devolution" of English is like this one, someone who uncunningly thinks some word or usage to be wrong (and often, wrongly, blames it on Americans) when, in truth, the usage has been about for several hundred years.

For byspel, not too long ago, I saw a post where someone bemoaned that Americans are butchering English by noting invite as a noun ... oops, turns out that it has been noted as a noun since the 1600s. ... Or win as a noun ... Or impact as a verb. And even if it were true that these were recent changes, I'd call them good ones!

Questions

What can I do besides... October 8, 2011