Debunking Grammar Myths. This week we're joined by a special guest blogger. Patricia T. O'Conner, a former editor at The New York Times Book Review, is the author of the national best-seller Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English, as well as other books about language. She is a regular monthly guest on public radio station WNYC in New York. Learn more at her website, grammarphobia.com. Make her feel welcome! When I think about the rules of grammar I sometimes recall the story—and it's a true one—about a lecture given in the 1950s by an eminent British philosopher of language. He remarked that in some languages two negatives make a positive, but in no language do two positives make a negative.
Don't we all sometimes feel like that voice from the back of the room? English is not so much a human invention as it is a force of nature, one that endures and flourishes despite our best attempts to ruin it. Myth #1: Don't Split an Infinitive. Where did the notion come from? Learn Your Damn Homophones. Fun With Words: Contronyms. A synonym is a word that means the same as another. Necessary and required are synonyms.
An antonym is a word that means the opposite of another. Wet and dry are antonyms. While synonyms and antonyms are not in themselves interesting, the complexities and irregularities of the English language sometimes make synonyms and antonyms interesting to explore. Many complexities result from words having multiple definitions. A trivial example is a word with synonyms that aren't synonyms of each other, the word beam, for example, having the synonyms bar and shine. Similarly, some words have antonyms that are neither synonyms nor antonyms of each other but completely unrelated: the word right, for example, having the antonyms wrong and left. A more interesting paradox occurs with the word groom, which does not really have an antonym in the strictest sense but has an opposite of sorts in the word bride, which can be used as a prefix to create a synonym, bridegroom. reckless, wreckless.
Beg The Question // Get it right. Homophones. Phatic expression. In linguistics, a phatic expression /ˈfætɨk/ is one whose only function is to perform a social task, as opposed to conveying information.[1] History[edit] The term was coined by anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski in the early 1900s from Greek phanein: to show oneself, appear. Understanding[edit] The utterance of a phatic expression is a kind of speech act. In Roman Jakobson's work, 'Phatic' communication is that which concerns the channel of communication, for instance when one says "I can't hear you, you're breaking up" in the middle of a cell phone conversation. This usage appears, for instance, in research on online communities and micro-blogging.[2][3] In speech communication the term means "small talk" (conversation for its own sake) and has also been called "grooming talking".[4] By language[edit] English[edit] The following is a specific example of the former: a simple, basic exchange, between two acquaintances in a non-formal environment.
Speaker one: "What's up? Japanese[edit]