Supposed to is part of a modal verb phrase meaning expected to or required to. Although suppose to crops up frequently in casual speech and writing, it should not be used in that sense. Suppose (without the d) should only be used as the present tense of the verb meaning to assume (something to be true).
To be supposed to is a common phrase that functions the same way a modal verb does.
Guest Post by Rochelle Ceira
Did you know that enneacontakaienneagon is actually a word in the English language? (And you thought pronouncing supercalifragilisticexpialidocious was difficult?). In fact, the meaning of the word is just as bizarre as the word itself: it’s a shape with ninety-nine sides.
Compared to other languages, English may seem simple, but that is probably because most people don’t realize it is full of crazy inventions, misinterpretations, mistakes, strange words, and needless words!
When it comes to language, it turns out that conservatives and liberals are more alike than you might think. The intrepid Grammarly team delved into the unfiltered political maelstrom on Reddit to get a look at how the Trump and Clinton subreddit communities write when they discuss the 2016 U.S. presidential election online. We used the Grammarly app’s powerful algorithms and new political correctness checks to find out not only how many spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors each camp made but also how often the software flagged their language as politically incorrect.
A young man named John Koenig was trying to write poems. However, some emotions seemed difficult to express in words. He had the idea of creating words for these previously unnamed feelings in a dictionary. Thus, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows was born. He began a website and a web series on Youtube that introduced his words to the world. Now, people everywhere can contribute to the dictionary.
Language is a living thing. No matter how many times we say it, it never gets any less true—language does resemble a living thing. It grows and changes, adapting to new circumstances, new words, new ways to use old words, and new combinations of letters and meaning. It’s a beautiful thing, the fact that language is alive.
It’s that time of year again. The days grow longer and the sunshine is determined to scorch. The parks fill up with children while picnics spread out in red and white gingham patches. The dog begs to go outside as we put away our heavy coats, hanging them neatly in closets. Long pants give way to shorts as coconut-scented oils fill the air with their perfume. It’s summer.
What phrases and books best evoke those fiery months?
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.
