Sometimes it’s difficult to know whether or not to capitalize certain words. Most of us know the days of the week and the months of the year are capitalized, but what about the seasons? Many people have to stop and think if they’re supposed to capitalize winter, spring, summer and fall (or autumn). It’s the …
Since there is such a lot of confusion about homonyms (words that are pronounced in the same way but spelled differently such as wether, weather and whether), it’s time to allot the task of explaining this trio to you. That last sentence may already have explained the difference between ‘allot’ and ‘a lot’ quite economically, …
You’re you, and you’re quite happy that way. Why would you want to create a random name for anything or anyone or even for yourself? It’s strange but true: you may well find the need to come up with a random name at some time in your life. There’s a good chance you have made …
The mysteries of punctuation are myriad, and they often come out when you are writing an essay. Where should commas actually go? When do you use a colon or a semi-colon, and should you capitalize your first letter after one of these full-stop hybrids? For those looking for a quick and dirty answer, a word …
For those wanting to improve vocabulary and spelling, doing so doesn’t have to be all hard work and no play. Word games get our mental juices going as we strive to solve puzzles, beat our neighbors and come up with letter combinations that magically make sense when arranged in the right way. If you were …
What’s in a name? Actually, quite a lot, especially if you’re blogging. You may have a dedicated group of followers who’ll read everything you post no matter what title you give it, but if you want to attract new readers and hold their attention, tiles are vitally important. Not convinced? Check out the 10 reasons …
You look at the page and see three words: weather, whether and wether. Although none of these three words is spelled the same, they all sound the same when you say them. They’re classed as homonyms. They have the same pronunciation but different meanings. It’s easy to confuse them, and it’s easy to write one …
If you want to become a better writer there are a number of steps you can take like improving your vocabulary. It also helps to have a good grasp of grammar, and what may initially seem to be simple isn’t always so. For example, can you guess how many pronouns are in the following sentence? …
When it comes to the question of directions, there’s often quite a bit of confusion as to whether or not you should capitalize the directions north, south, east and west. Part of the problem is there are times you do and times you don’t, and sometimes the difference between the two isn’t readily apparent. In …
If English is your second language, idioms may well puzzle you. The words that are used have little or nothing to do with the topic under discussion, but English speakers slip them in without thinking twice (if you’re interested in learning the meaning of many common idioms, you can use this random phrase generator). If …
