Mark Forsyth tasted internet fame this week when a passage from a book he wrote went viral. He explains more language secrets that native speakers know without knowing.
Source: BBC – Culture – The language rules we know – but don’t know we know
Tag: grammar
These words… they don’t mean what you think they mean.
Steven Pinker is a brilliant linguist with an ear for the common tongue and a brain to understand how it fits into the new millennium. Still… there are words which he says we (the collective, English-speaking we, not you in particular) get wrong with alarming regularity. He also has a word or two (or ten, in fact) to say about modern grammar myths and issues which we all think are rules but in actuality are not.
Of course, for my money, you can’t go wrong with The Oatmeal when you need spelling advice.
Why understanding grammar matters…
You want to know why education is important and why not understanding grammar is a bad thing? Here’s a great example for you. Look at those brackets in the above quote attributed to President Obama. Those mean something. Do you know what? They are not there for emphasis, they are not there to highlight the words within. Continue reading “Why understanding grammar matters…”
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 