2016-07-15 04:42
A small class of English words derived from the Latin suffixes -arius/-aria/-arium, meaning “connected with” or “pertaining to,” can be identified by the French desce… Read More
Blog Directory > Politics Blogs > Journalism Blogs > Daily Writing Tips journalism Blog >
Daily Writing Tips Blog
dailywritingtips.com
Tags:
phrase
latin
meaning
latin word
sentence
expressing
dangerous
realize tremendous
green
accurately stated
Daily articles on grammar, spelling, misused words, punctuation, fiction writing, freelance writing and more!
2016-07-14 04:41
When is it appropriate to abbreviate words? The answer to this question, as with many matters in writing, is not a simple one: It depends on type of content and the degree of the content&rsq&hell…Read More
2016-07-13 04:24
A recent post discussed nouns employed to refer to ultimate achievement. Here, you’ll find details about adjectives that describe something that is the best, highest, or most important… Read More
2016-07-12 04:35
Expressing oneself clearly and concisely in speech is a challenge because one has so little time to order one’s thoughts and choose one’s wording carefully, but writing is easily… Read More
2016-07-11 04:17
Inserting additional information into a sentence without careful consideration of sentence organization can create barriers to comprehension, especially when the parenthesis is complicated… Read More
2016-07-09 04:39
A common stylistic fault is wordiness, using more words than necessary to express a simple thought. The following sentences contain often-heard expressions that contribute to a boring writin… Read More
2016-07-08 04:59
At least seven strategies for calling attention to one or more words exist, but few of them are appropriate for a document that one wishes to consider professional looking. The purposes and… Read More
2016-07-07 04:18
How does one express the greatest degree of success? Multiple optimal words are available to choose from.
Several terms refer literally to mountaintops. Peak, perhaps an alteration of pike… Read More
2016-07-06 04:50
The following is a list of idioms about ordinal numbers (first, second, and so on) and multiplicative numbers, or what the late English-usage expert Henry Watson Fowler called numeral adverb… Read More
2016-07-05 04:30
A recent newspaper article about the world’s ugliest color reminded me that writers of both fiction and nonfiction can be misguided in describing colors. The article referred to a stud… Read More
2016-07-04 04:44
What do the three nouns in this post’s title have in common? Yes, they all refer to questions or problems to be answered or solved, but there’s a more interesting commonality: Th… Read More
2016-06-06 04:26
Apparently, I missed it: Ten years ago, the initialism ICYMI entered the social media lexicon by way of Twitter. Like BTW, IMO, IIRC, and others, it’s employed as an entrée to a… Read More
2016-06-05 04:54
A reader asks for a discussion of these two words:
I get confused when using “belie” and “betray.” Sometimes they seem to mean the same thing. Would you please explai… Read More
2016-06-04 04:52
A reader who has seen a common synonym for earthquake spelled more than one way asks,
Your guidance, please. “Trembler” or “Tremblor”?
Of the two, trembler is th… Read More
2016-06-03 04:32
As a word nerd, I find it pleasurable to discover words I had not heretofore known about. Being introduced to utilitarian technical and scientific terminology generally doesn’t do much… Read More
2016-06-02 04:11
Often, when a sentence expresses a point and a counterpoint with the phrases “not only” and “but also,” writers have difficulty constructing the sentence in the corre… Read More
2016-06-01 04:53
When writers, amateurs and professionals alike, employ words or phrases they have heard spoken but not seen written, they often mistakenly use a homophone or near homophone of the intended w… Read More
2016-05-31 04:47
Six categories of punctuation errors include missing, extraneous, misplaced, excessive, incorrect, and inconsistent punctuation. Each of the following sentences illustrate one of those error… Read More
2016-05-30 04:14
Writers and editors should be alert to opportunities to improve the flow of content by combining consecutive truncated sentences that refer to a single topic. Here are five approaches to fol… Read More
2016-05-29 04:34
A reader questions the use of the preposition against to follow the verb oppose in this example from an entertainment site:
[Madonna] wanted to be the only female voice of the band, and opp… Read More
2016-05-28 04:40
In the context of anatomy, a sinew is “a strong fibrous cord serving to connect a muscle with a bone or other part.”
Figuratively, usually in the plural, sinew connotes strength… Read More
2016-05-27 04:30
The following is a list of idioms about multiplicative numbers (single, double, and triple) and their meanings.
1–2. at a single blow/stroke: with one movement
3–4. at/on the dou… Read More
2016-05-26 04:55
When a writer wishes to call attention to a dubious or specious claim or to a person of questionable honesty, two forms of shorthand are available: scare quotes and sneer words.
Scare quotes… Read More
2016-05-25 03:22
When writers neglect to take sufficient care in forming sentences, confusion and error can easily result. The following five sentences illustrate various ways in which the wrong word order o… Read More
2016-05-24 04:55
Numerous idioms ending with the word out exist, but only a select group serve (in open form) both as verb phrases and (in hyphenated or closed form) as compound nouns; “tune out,&rdquo&hell…Read More
2016-05-23 04:11
The oft-misunderstood hyphen is often left out of a phrase because of confusion about (or ignorance of) its purpose; occasionally, perplexity about the hyphen’s function is the cause o… Read More
2016-05-22 04:25
The term “lean writing style” is not new to literary criticism. Dashiell Hammett is the American writer most cited as the master of it.
However, the recent spate of how-to artic… Read More
2016-05-21 04:10
The following sentence on a professional writing site caught my attention:
Simultaneous people (e.g. the editor and writer) can work on the same document at the same time, ensuring changes a… Read More
2016-05-20 04:59
Is it a coincidence that the etymologically unrelated but closely associated words could, should, and would look and sound nearly the same? Mostly yes, with a little bit of no.
Could derives… Read More
2016-05-19 04:34
Writers easily confuse an appositive (a descriptive word or phrase that is equivalent to a person, place, or thing that is named) with a phrase that simply describes a person, place, or thin… Read More
2016-05-18 04:06
An initial letter, almost invariably capitalized, is often the first element in a two-word noun compound that constitutes an idiom. (Use of a connecting hyphen varies, and various sources ma… Read More
2016-05-17 04:12
Various words and phrases serve to communicate what a word or phrase refers to or herald to a reader that additional information is forthcoming or a comparison is being made, but writers som… Read More
2016-05-16 12:23
The Latin term motus, meaning “a moving” or “motion,” is the progenitor of the Old French word motif, which survived unchanged into Modern French and was subsequently… Read More
2016-05-15 04:29
Recently I’ve noticed the phrase “stating to be” in contexts that call for either “claiming to be” or “stating that.” For example:
This Buffalo, NY… Read More
2016-05-14 04:24
A frequent source of miscommunication is to assume that the people we address attach the same connotation and meaning to words that we do.
A case in point is a recent letter-to-the-editor in… Read More
2016-05-13 04:34
Semicolons help clarify construction of sentences. Using the punctuation mark, employed as either a comma on steroids or a strategically flexible period, is usually just one of two or more p… Read More
2016-05-12 04:24
When quotations are integrated into the syntax of a sentence, joining forces with a paraphrase to create an extended statement, the first word in the original quote is generally not capitali… Read More
2016-05-11 04:01
Idioms that refer to what is the fanciful seat of our emotions as well as the factual core of our circulatory system are understandably numerous. Here’s a list of phrases and expressio… Read More
2016-05-10 04:39
Several venerable words serve as the base for compounds that refer to people who make or sell things: monger, smith, and wright. Here’s a review of those compounds.
Monger, stemming fr… Read More
2016-05-09 04:38
A lack of parallel structure in sentence construction can lead to confusion. Make sure that statements are scaffolded correctly to convey the intended meaning, as explained and demonstrated… Read More
2016-05-08 04:40
Secretary is formed from secret. The noun suffix -ary comes from a Latin masculine form and means “belonging to or engaged in.”
The first “secretaries” were men who k… Read More
2016-05-07 04:35
A reader questions a radio announcer’s odd use of high to quantify the noun consequences:
“For business owners who become the victims of these scams, the consequences can be high… Read More
2016-05-06 04:05
A few years ago, I wrote a post titled “How Long Should a Paragraph Be?” which argued that various pronouncements that dictate paragraph length (expounded for the benefit of begi… Read More
2016-05-05 04:07
When an adjective can be shared between two nouns to form a pair of parallel phrasal adjectives modifying another noun, the first instance of the simple adjective can be elided so that it is… Read More
2016-05-04 04:11
Considering that time is such a critical element in our lives, it’s no surprise that the word time should crop up so often in English idiomatic usage. Here’s a list of phrases th… Read More
2016-05-03 04:47
Semicolons serve a useful function in helping distinguish between elements of complex sentences, but lengthy sentences with long phrases do not necessarily require the support semicolons pro… Read More
2016-05-02 04:34
Have you ever described someone as a blockhead? Have you explained an action as heavy-handed? Have you ever referred to someone as white-collar? If so, then you’ve employed a bahuvrihi… Read More
2016-05-01 04:35
In his Essay on Criticism (1711), Alexander Pope (1688-1744) wrote:
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts [swallows] int… Read More
2016-04-30 04:11
A reader remarks on the use of toothsome in this headline at Discovery-dot-com:
Crocodiles are fun-loving, finds a new study on the toothsome predators.
Unless the writer thinks of crocodile… Read More
2016-04-29 04:41
It is etymologically appropriate that the term mob should be associated with a roiling crowd, because the word is a clipped form of mobile.
That word, in Latin, means “movable,”… Read More
2016-04-28 10:41
The following three sentences, each followed by a discussion and a revision, illustrate the problem with setting up a “neither . . . nor” construction or similar phrasing without… Read More
2016-04-27 04:15
The sport nostalgically known as “America’s Pastime” (though football now reigns supreme) is the source of many evocative idioms whose meanings now extend beyond the baseba… Read More
2016-04-26 10:57
Every single week we receive an email from someone asking when the next Freelance Writing Course will be offered, as we only run it once or twice a year. If you are one of those, wait no mor… Read More
2016-04-26 04:31
The presence or absence of a single punctuation mark can create confusion or ambiguity about the meaning of a sentence. Three sentences illustrating this problem, each followed by discussion… Read More
2016-04-25 04:04
Merriam-Webster, publisher of the print and online dictionary that is perhaps most widely consulted by wordsmiths in the United States, has made what some may consider an audacious decision:… Read More
2016-04-24 04:42
The expressions “political correctness” and “politically correct” have gone through so many meanings that it’s no longer possible to know what a speaker means b… Read More
2016-04-23 04:46
What do the following examples from the Web have in common?
Changing my mind is not something that happens often. It’s a simple case of me stating my poin… Read More
2016-04-22 04:19
A small group of words ending in -volve share an etymological origin of the Latin verb volvere, meaning “turn,” but they have some cousins whose family resemblance is not obvious… Read More
2016-04-21 04:14
Despite the waning popularity of pugilism, or the sweet science, as boxing is also called, the sport has contributed a number of colorful words, phrases, and expressions out of proportion to… Read More
2016-04-20 04:44
In the following sentences, something about the treatment of a quotation interferes with comprehension. Discussion of the error, and a revision of the sentence, follows each example.
1. &ldq&hell…Read More
2016-04-19 04:40
Each of the following sentences has an organizational flaw. A discussion of each is followed by a suggested revision.
1. People who are successful at careers in fashion design are hardworkin… Read More
2016-04-18 04:07
I was slightly put off by a newspaper article that referred to the recent appearance before a US Senate subcommittee of philanthropist Paul David Hewson. Why? Because the article, after intr… Read More
2016-04-17 04:20
Spring is in the air so I feel like writing about flowers. One of my all-time favorites is the rose.
Most people can quote Juliet’s comment about the name of the rose:
What’s in… Read More
2016-04-16 04:34
As the 2016 US presidential election campaign slouches toward November, the words demagogue, demagogic, and demagoguery make frequent appearances in the media.
For example, in a Sunday morn… Read More
2016-04-15 04:30
A number of words referring to an assortment of food in one dish or display of dishes also allude to a mixture (often a confused one); here are those terms and their meanings and origins.
A… Read More
2016-04-14 04:39
The three sentences that follow illustrate the importance of the inclusion or omission of a comma can have in easing comprehension of a sentence.
1. After two hours at the bar, Jones said Sm… Read More
2016-04-13 04:06
Selfie is the latest addition to a small family of English words using the diminutive suffix -ie as an informal marker.
Purely diminutive forms have been around for hundreds of years; puppy… Read More
2016-04-12 03:16
Hyphens have been erroneously omitted from phrasal adjectives in the following three examples, each of which is followed by an explanation of the error and a corrected version of the sentenc… Read More
2016-04-11 03:14
I was interested to read about a recent University of Michigan study that concluded that people who are highly judgmental about writing errors tend to be more introverted and have less pleas… Read More
2016-04-10 04:51
The other day when I saw the words to an unfamiliar modern hymn displayed on a screen, I stumbled over the word Father used as a verb. My momentary confusion was not because a noun was being… Read More
2016-04-09 04:52
A reader remarked on the use of “silver bullet” in this quotation: “The answer is to find a silver bullet that will wean us from fossil fuels.”
Suggests the reader… Read More
2016-04-08 04:44
The Latin word nomen, meaning “name,” is the source of many words in English that pertain to names and naming. Here are the most common of those words and their definitions.
Nome… Read More
2016-04-07 04:18
Several English words are derived from the Latin term manus (the basis of manual), meaning “hand,” but many others are unrelated. Here’s a breakdown of which words starting… Read More
2016-04-06 04:15
Take care that when you begin a sentence with a subordinate clause—a string of words that does not stand on its own as a complete statement but supports the main clause—the modif… Read More
2016-04-05 04:47
Last week, I offered a post about idioms pertaining to the number one (I limited the scope because there’s only so much space on the Internet.) Here’s the sequel, with expression… Read More
2016-04-04 04:39
It’s not only quite possible but also quite common for what initially appears to be a well-written sentence to turn out to fail to express what the writer intended. Readers may be able… Read More
2016-04-03 04:04
You’re trying to think of a word, but it stubbornly refuses to materialize. Oh, well. You’ll think of it—when it’s too late. What do you do in the meantime? Plenty of… Read More
2016-04-02 04:02
The root word join is the basis of a small group of words with some sense pertaining to unity, though many originally had a legal connotation (and some still do). Here are those words and th… Read More
2016-04-01 04:36
A reader questions my use of the subject pronoun I to follow the conjunction as in a recent post. I wrote “not so sanguine as I.” The reader suggests that I should have written … Read More
2016-03-31 04:31
Redundancies abound in everyday speech: phrases that say the same thing twice. For example, two of the most common expressions that include a redundant adjective are “free gift”… Read More
2016-03-30 04:25
English is replete with idiomatic expressions featuring numerical values, including dozens pertaining to the number one alone. Here’s a list of most (if not all) of the idioms in the l… Read More
2016-03-29 03:50
Mistaken insertion or omission of hyphens in phrasal adjectives that involve quantities is a common error. The following sentences illustrate several types of incorrect usage to avoid.
1. In… Read More
2016-03-28 05:51
The sentences below illustrate various types of mistakes in wording born from (not “borne out of”) ignorance or carelessness.
1. All the progress we have made to educate people a… Read More
2016-03-27 04:24
A reader has asked me to explain the differences between prophetic, predictive, presageful, and portentous.
In a very general sense, the words are synonymous. All four are adjectives indicat… Read More
2016-03-26 04:20
As I watched holiday re-runs of the Lord of the Rings movies, I wondered if there might be a term for the way Gollum adds syllables to words.
Note: Gollum is a fictional character in The Hob… Read More
2016-03-24 04:59
Punctuation is a support system to enhance the organizational flow of a sentence. Often, it also provides transitional cues, and for clarity, it’s important to make that distinction by… Read More
2016-03-23 04:18
Hand tools have inspired a tool box full of metaphorical words and expressions. Here’s a list of many of those handy idioms.
1–5. angry/mad enough to chew nails/spit nails or rea… Read More
2016-03-22 04:01
Hyphens are used primarily to organize two or more words into phrases to aid in reading comprehension. Although errors in the use of hyphens are usually errors of omission, erroneous overuse… Read More
2016-03-21 03:18
Phrases that provide additional information in a sentence are often haphazardly situated within that sentence in such a way that the reader might be confused about what the modifying phrase… Read More
2016-03-20 04:07
The expression “to a T,” as in “That suits you to a T!” is often mistakenly written or said as “to the T” (or “to a tee” or “to the tee… Read More
2016-03-19 05:03
In this post I’m going to temper the constant media barrage of negativity with words that denote cooperation and friendly relations among people who are engaged in the same activity. T… Read More
2016-03-18 04:08
Cognition is the use of mental processes such as learning, remembering, thinking, and understanding. It stems from the Latin verb cognoscere, meaning “become acquainted with.” No… Read More
2016-03-17 04:41
Synergy may be defined as “increased effectiveness, achievement, etc., produced as a result of combined action or co-operation.”
Until the late 1950s, the term was probably most… Read More
2016-03-16 04:30
The adjective clean has many senses: “free from dirt, contamination or disease, or pollution,” “fair” or “pure,” “clear” or “legible,&rd&hell…Read More
2016-03-15 04:06
Introducing additional but nonessential information into a sentence complicates the reader’s task when punctuation is misused. Here are five sentences that illustrate various punctuati… Read More
2016-03-14 04:41
Because of the significance of Greek civilization in the development of engineering, mathematics, and science, names for Greek letters of the alphabet are widely employed in English to repre… Read More
2016-03-13 04:10
A reader corrected my usage in the following extract from a previous post:
Suggesting that one form of speech is preferable to another, however, can annoy people no end.
The reader correcte… Read More
2016-03-12 04:06
When I was still young enough to be under parental supervision, if I did something ill-considered, I was not “grounded”; I “lost privileges.” The use of grounded to… Read More
2016-03-11 04:20
Zero is the basis of a small set of terms and idiomatic phrases, which are listed and defined below.
Zero derives, through French and Italian, from the Latin term zephirum, which in turn ste… Read More
2016-03-10 04:26
Aught and naught both mean “nothing.” Ought they to be antonyms rather than synonyms?
Actually, aught means “something” or “anything”; it’s from the… Read More
Subscribe to Daily Writing Tips
Get updates delivered right to your inbox!