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J.A.Wines

  • Alexandra Skitiovahas quotedlast year
    1762, an Oxford professor called Robert Lowth produced a prescriptive text titled A Short Introduction to English Grammar, a publication so influential that it dominated grammar teaching into the twentieth century
  • Alexandra Skitiovahas quotedlast year
    In these commonly confused noun/verb pairs, the noun has a c and the verb has an s.†7

    Noun

    Verb

    advice

    advise

    practice

    practise

    device

    devise

    prophecy

    prophesy

    licence

    license
  • Alexandra Skitiovahas quotedlast year
    Webster was an orderly-minded man who disapproved of a lot of the spelling that Johnson had recorded (indeed, he disapproved of a lot about Johnson, saying that he was ‘naturally indolent and seldom wrote until he was urged by want. Hence… he was compelled to prepare his manuscripts in haste.’).

    Webster’s dislike of words that weren’t pronounced the way they looked led him to decree that words such as centre and theatre should be spelled center and theater; he also dropped the silent u from words such as colour, favour and honour. In fact, Webster was single-handedly responsible for most of the differences between British and American spelling that survive to this day.
  • Alexandra Skitiovahas quotedlast year
    To abuse something means to treat it so badly that you damage it.

    To misuse something means to use it wrongly.

    To disabuse someone of something means to show them that their thinking is wrong.
  • Alexandra Skitiovahas quotedlast year
    Something looks like something else – they physically resemble one another.

    He looks like his mother and she looks like Margaret Thatcher.

    However:

    It looks as if a storm is coming.
  • Alexandra Skitiovahas quotedlast year
    complement/compliment
    May I compliment you on your new hairstyle? The colour complements your dress beautifully.
  • Alexandra Skitiovahas quotedlast year
    Continual means ‘happening over and over and over again’; continuous means ‘happening constantly without stopping’. You may continually receive unwanted telephone calls from telesales people. However, if this were happening continuously, you would never be able to put the phone down.
  • Alexandra Skitiovahas quotedlast year
    due to/owing to
    This is another of those ‘strictly speaking’ problems. Chambers Dictionary says that due to means ‘caused by’ with a second definition of ‘owing to, because of’, which, it adds, is ‘a use still deprecated by some but now almost standard’. So, for the benefit of the pedants among us:

    Due to means ‘caused by’.

    Owing to means ‘because of’.

    To determine which to use, decide whether you would replace due to or owing to by caused by or because of.
  • Alexandra Skitiovahas quotedlast year
    hanged/hung
    Pictures or meat are hung; criminals used to be hanged.
  • Alexandra Skitiovahas quotedlast year
    imply/infer
    Speakers imply something by hinting at it; listeners infer something based on the information they hear.

    I infer from your tone that you are angry with me.
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