Motivated Grammar provided an excellent discussion of word choice — specifically confusing homophones (like “your” and “you’re”).
Similar Posts
Friday fun with lame punctuation humor
Happy Friday!
Pros plan message content strategically
A while back, I included a personal example of audience analysis. Thanks to Tom Orr for suggesting that I follow up by showing y’all the letter. I decided it might be helpful to share even more of the process — like how we developed the content for the first draft. So here goes. Purpose & Audience:…
Amateurs think standard English matters only in school
The Harvard Business Review blog network recently featured a piece by Kyle Wiens called I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why. Wiens runs two companies, and both focus on technical communication. But he makes a good argument about why what he calls “grammar” matters in any workplace. Grammar is relevant for all companies. Yes, language…
Friday fun with dirty words (your friends won’t know are dirty)
Because it’s Friday and we all need a little more fun, I’m sharing The Dirty Etymology of 9 Everyday Words by Romy Oltuski, who wrote this piece for mental_floss.** I don’t know Romy, but I share her sense of humor about word origins. Enjoy! Within our lexicon lives a library of forgotten stories, developed over…
It’s dangerous using words: Malapropisms and more
Today I’m sharing a little linguistic fun by directing you to an episode of the Slate podcast, Lexicon Valley. In case you’re impatient, one of the hosts provides a definition: the word malapropism comes from the name of a character in an 18th-century play called The Rivals by a guy named Richard Sheridan. There’s a…
The sorry state of language education
Please tell me you had a teacher talk about homophones at least once during your educational experience. This story from the Salt Lake Tribune a few days ago depresses me on many levels. In short, an English language teacher was fired for using the word, “homophonic.” Like I’m watching a car crash . . . I haven’t been…
I defiantly enjoy this post.
Wait … defiantly and definitely aren’t homophones — just another effect of the Spell Check Trap.
Ha! I have certainly been called “defiant” before. But it’s not true at this specific moment. Or in response to this specific post. Though Jack Black could be implicated here. I can’t blame spell check. Just clumsy typing on my part. (I had to re-type after the system kicked me out ’cause it didn’t like my log in ID.) Argh . . .