Happy Dictionary Day!
October 16, 1758, was the birthdate of the American lexicographer Noah Webster. If you’ve ever wondered who decided that Americans should write color while the British write colour, Noah Webster is your guy.
To celebrate our love of lexicography, here are ten wonderful words to add to your vocabulary today:
Antipode n. A direct or extreme opposite. Angelica often gets into heated conversations with Duane, her ideological antipode.
People use both further and farther to mean “more distant.” However, American English speakers favor farther for physical distances and further for figurative distances.
Ray LeBlond once said “You learn something every day if you pay attention.” Today is the day to learn the difference between further and farther.
Unsurprisingly, farther means “at or to a greater distance.” In Salt to the Sea, Ruta Sepetys uses this adverb to describe the activity of some sea vessels: Some boats eventually floated ashore.
Most of the time, you should not use a comma before because when it connects two clauses in a sentence. Because is a subordinating conjunction, which means that it connects a subordinate clause to an independent clause; good style dictates that there should be no comma between these two clauses. An exception can and should be made when the lack of a comma would cause ambiguity.
Because has a straightforward job to do in the English language.
This poll is part of a series that Grammarly is running aimed at better understanding how the public feels about writing, language learning, and grammar.
Please take the poll and share your thoughts in the comments. We can’t wait to hear from you!
If you are interested in more, check out last week’s poll.
Smosh gets 100% credit for commitment. These grammar-loving cops don’t kid around!
You’re having an average morning at the office, when suddenly word ripples out from the corner suite: the boss is going to visit a major potential client this afternoon, and she wants the latest version of the demo ready to show off. A wave of adrenaline sweeps the room—this is all hands on deck.
The copywriter and designers launch into vetting every scrap of text and making sure every element on the screen will be pixel-perfect.
