Category: Blog

Synonyms are words that have similar, but not necessarily identical meanings. 

Here’s an example: Recently I saw a headline that mentioned the auction price of a car:

Ferrari GTO Sold For $48.4 Million, Breaks Auction Record For Most Valuable Car

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/233773/20180826/ferrari-gto-sold-for-48-4-million-breaks-auction-record-for-most-valuable-car.htm

This wasn’t the only similar headline. My point is that the headlines used the word “valuable.” The correct word is “expensive.”

Value is subjective; it varies from person to person. It tends to have a certain emotional punch, too, certainly more than a mere number, which is what most expensive refers to. (To be fair, I should add that the fact-laden article used the less-emotional phrase “highest-priced car.”)

Emotionally charged words make better headlines, but if you’re explaining something, stay away from emotion; stick with the facts.

Here’s the comic. Read carefully.

Here’s the quiz: How many mistakes did you find? I got eight.

Not much content in today’s post, especially since this doesn’t apply to me: I have no trouble correcting grammar. When asked.

Hmm. You might say that it should be “peoples’ grammar,” but I suspect he talks to one person at a time; justifying use of the singular. Maybe. What do you think?

I mention compound adjectives occasionally; here’s a good example of the difference in meaning when you hyphenate or don’t hyphenate.

Sometimes you have two or more modifiers before a noun. If the first word refers to the next one, you hyphenate them and they function as one word. If they separately refer to the noun, don’t hyphenate. 

She is correct! To have “big” refer to the mosquitoes, it should be “big-mosquito lake.”

PS—yes, “mosquito” is a noun, not an adjective. But it’s being used as an adjective. We call this using the noun attributively.

The comic is about grammar, so go ahead; read it and chuckle. My lesson, though, is in the last panel. 

We call it direct address when you name the person (or persons—or readers, shall we say) whom you are writing to. Sometimes I start a post with, “Our lesson for today, class, is…” That’s direct address.

Here’s the rule, in case the rule isn’t already obvious:

Separate direct address from the rest of the sentence with commas.

Of course, the plural, “commas,” applies only if the direct address is inside the sentence. If it’s the first or last word, you need only one comma. duh.

PS—wouldn’t you know, the comic repeated the same joke a week later:

I just ran into a comic that is similar to the “like or as” mistake I mentioned the other day. Should the kid in the first panel use “us” or “we”?

He should use “we”! The sentence is easier to get right if you say “…dogs can smell better than we can smell.” It’s the verb he’s comparing, so “we” is a subject.

And here’s another comic with the same mistake. Of course, I don’t really expect kids in pre-K to get this right.

The last sentence in the second panel. It should be “…knows you better than I do.” The way it’s written, it means “…knows you better than they know me.”

Not a lot of content today. You have to supply the rhyme.

Reminds me of a poem we used to recite when I was a kid:

Mary had a little lamb
It fell into a well.
Mary threw some dynamite in
And blew it all to little pieces about so big.

Another poetry question: Is this a limerick?

A limerick writer named Drew
always ended his poems on line two.

How about this one?

A limerick writer, a Hun,

Enough! I’ll go to my room now.