Someone may have told you you were wrong for saying, I’m good, instead of the more formal I’m well. But is the response I’m good actually incorrect? Not technically. Let’s explore the rules and conventions for these two words.Well is often used as an adverb. Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Good is most widely used as an adjective, meaning that it can modify …
Misuse of the terms fewer and less will set off alarms in the heads of many language enthusiasts. According to usage rules, fewer is only to be used when discussing countable things, while less is used for singular mass nouns. For example, you can have fewer ingredients, dollars, people, or puppies, but less salt, money, honesty, or love. If you can count it, go for …
The English language is infamously difficult in part because its spelling befuddles even native speakers as letters take on different sounds depending on what letters surround it. Few letters exemplify this trouble more than the third letter of the English alphabet: C. Think about these words: cease, coin, chic, indict, and discrepancy.
Over the last couple of years, the term bae has achieved widespread usage. While the noun form has been around for over 10 years, adjectival and verbal uses, along with other related forms, have more recently started popping up to describe the people and things we love, or at least like-like. Twitter, in particular, is rife with interesting new uses of the term. The popular social …
In the comments of our Word Fact post about the difference between affect and effect, Carolyn K. wrote: Please, please, please, I beg you to do Lets vs. Let’s. Every sports team’s media/PR department does it wrong, and it drives me absolutely out of my mind! This lets us address another great topic, since these terms are often confused—let’s figure it out!
Even the least tech-savvy lexicographer understands that technology is a robust source of new words. As technologies move from the realm of science fiction into our everyday realities, new words and meanings spring up around them. While it is expected that names for these new technologies and the words describing our interaction with them are regularly entering the language, there are less obvious coinages that …