Archives
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Moot Point vs. Mute Point
You may have heard coworkers or acquaintances refer to an inconsequential or irrelevant point as a moot point, or maybe you’ve heard mute point instead. Fans of the TV show Friends may have heard a third variation: moo point (because, according to Joey, a cow’s opinion doesn’t matter). But which expression is correct, and what exactly does it mean? The correct phrase is moot point. …
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Bring vs. Take
Do you bring food to a party, or do you take food to a party? The terms bring and take are often confused, and for good reason. Both words describe the movement of something from one location to another.
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You Didn’t Invent That: F. Scott Fitzgerald and “Jazz Age”
F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely viewed as having been the inventor of the term jazz age. Numerous books, academic and otherwise, have proclaimed that Fitzgerald named the decade, coined the term, invented the phrase, and so on and so forth. There is no doubt that the phrase became much more widely used after the publication of Fitzgerald’s 1922 book Tales of the Jazz Age, and …
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“Alright” vs. “All Right”
Are all right and alright interchangeable? All right has a range of meanings including: “safe,” as in Are you all right? “reliable; good,” as in That fellow is all right. as an adverb, it means “satisfactorily,” as in His work is coming along all right. “yes,” as in All right, I’ll go with you. Is alright a real word? The form alright is a one-word …
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You Didn’t Invent That: Ian Fleming and “Ninja”
Was the creator of James Bond (and the author of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) responsible, in some small way, for the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? This is likely not a question that has ever crossed your mind, and the answer, as with so many ridiculous questions, is yes (and no).