Guest post by Annie Martirosyan
There are a number of words in Shakespeare’s plays and poems which are deceptive to modern ears. They may seem familiar words but, in fact, camouflage a quite different meaning lost to modern English. In Linguistics, these words are called False Friends. A False Friend is a word which has kept its form but has strayed from its original sense (or was a completely different word) so that the modern English word is false when compared to the original sense or word.
A nonrestrictive clause offers extra information about something you have mentioned in a sentence, but the information isn’t essential to identify the thing you’re talking about. Nonrestrictive clauses are usually introduced by which or who and should be set off by commas.
The clause “which Chester recommended” is nonrestrictive because “Posey’s Cafe” is already specific.
From Merriam-Webster’s Peter Sokolowski, here’s the full list of words
(we added a few notations about why certain words were added, via the m-w.com press release):
aha moment n (1939) : a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension [Oprah Winfrey’s signature phrase]
brain cramp n (1982) : an instance of temporary mental confusion resulting in an error or lapse of judgment
The verb spell commonly means to write or name the letters making up a word in the right order. Spell is a verb with irregular and regular forms. Spelled and spelt are both common forms of the past tense and the past participle of spell, though with geographical differences.
Learn more about the details of this difference, as well as additional uses for spelt, below.
What you see above is a usage example of the verb “ought,” which has two different meanings.
1 “Ought” can indicate correctness or duty, often when criticizing the actions of another.
2 “Ought” can indicate that something is probable.
In between should always appear as two words. Although inbetween is common, it is a misspelling and does not appear in any English dictionary. Unnecessarily adding in to between is also a common grammatical mistake. As a compound adjective, in-between should be hyphenated.
When we speak, we often add in before between when it isn’t needed.
It is sometimes said that the United States and the United Kingdom are two countries separated by a common language. Despite the fact that English is the most widely used language in both countries, a distinction is often made between the English used in the United States—American English—and the English used in the United Kingdom—British English. The differences between the two varieties of English are usually subtle, but they exist nonetheless, particularly around spelling.
