The increasingly common misspelling of “expatriate” as “ex-patriot” twists the noun’s meaning in a curious way. An “expatriate,” which is often shortened to “expat,” is ….
Tag: Make Your Editor Cry
The words “except, accept, expect” have absolutely no senses in common. To except is to take or leave out from a number or a whole, ….
Glad’s slogan on their Glad Wrap is “Seals in Freshness. Everyday.” They’ve even trademarked it! The same goes with OfficeWerks. “Lowest prices everyday!” Obviously, they ….
An epitaph is written on a tombstone. Specifically, the epitaph is usually the words inscribed on the stone, but it can also be a memorial ….
Envelop means to wrap around something completely, to surround, either literally or figuratively. Fog can envelop a city, but love might also envelop a person’s ….
This one always makes me laugh like a little kid. “A scapegoat” is a biblical animal while an “escape goat” exists as the result of ….
Here’s another idiom that makes no sense if you just stop and think about the meaning of the words. You can’t say something is worse ….
BLUF: (Bottom Line Up Front) “Energy” as power is a mass noun. It has no plural form. The definition of energy as power: a fundamental ….
BLUF: (Bottom Line Up Front) The plural of emphasis is emphases. The definition of emphasis: special consideration of or stress or insistence on something The ….
Empathy comes from the Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathēs emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion and was first used in English in 1909 ….