Pair, pare and pear are homophones. I sometimes see pair used when pare or pear would be appropriate. It depends on the context, but it can be very confusing when these words are used incorrectly.
Pair
Pare
Pear
Lallygag (or lollygag) is an American slang word. It means ‘to spend time aimlessly’, ‘to be idle’ or ‘to fool around’. It can also mean ‘dawdle’ or ‘dally’.
The origin appears to be unknown. The word forms include lallygagged and lallygagging.
The OED gives examples of early usage, and this one caught my eye:
“The lascivious lolly-gagging lumps of licentiousness who disgrace the common decencies of life by their love-sick fawnings at our public dances.” Northern Vindicator (Estherville, Iowa), 1868.
That’s impressive alliteration and I only wish I could view the rest of the newspaper article (or letter – I bet it’s from a letter).
The Penguin Writer’s Manual features on my list of recommended books and my own bookshelf. The blurb describes it as follows:
The Penguin Writer’s Manual is the essential companion for anyone who wants to master the art of writing good English. Whether you’re composing an essay, sending a business letter or an email to a colleague, or firing off an angry letter to a newspaper, this guide will help you to brush up you communication skills and write correct and confident English.
via The Penguin Writer’s Manual.
The book isn’t as belligerent as that passage makes it sound. The value of this book is probably not in the depth of its explanations. If you need a quick refresher on what an adverbial phrase or a preposition is, this will help. The sections on word usage and vocabulary are also useful.
I think the value of this book is in its advice. The Penguin Writer’s Manual was published in 2002, but its content is still surprisingly relevant. (I am still coming to terms with 2002 being a long time ago.)
If you need to write a business letter but you aren’t sure what to include, the guidelines are well explained with examples of good practice. Other types of communication you may not do on a daily basis are also addressed, such as letters of sympathy or job references.
The authors also give more general advice, including discussions on style and effective communication. Much of the advice is easy to understand and apply, and yet in some ways profound:
One of the wisest uses of time is to think about precisely what it is you wish or need to say.
The book has 352 pages and would be easy to tuck into your bag if you wanted to work outside. You can find the book and more reviews on Amazon, but you can probably pick up a second-hand copy for a very reasonable amount.
These two words are easily confused, and often wrongly selected by autocorrect when you aren’t paying attention to the keys you are hitting.
Ingenious
Ingenuous
You can work out which word you need by remembering that a genius is often ingenious.
It’s British Pie Week. It is therefore only fitting that this week’s interesting word should be related to pie.
A pie-biter is a person who eats or really likes pies. It can also be a greedy person or animal, or a person who accepts political favours (pie is a slang word for political favour or patronage).
Although rare, pie-biter is a colloquial term typically used in the United States or as derogatory slang in Australia (where the meaning is often ‘a fat person’).
The origin of the word is straightforward: pie meaning ‘a baked dish with a pastry top and/or base’ and biter meaning ‘someone who or something that bites’.
The earliest documented usage in the OED is from 1863.
Today marks the first anniversary of the creation of proofreaderhannah.com. I almost can’t believe it has been one year already.
I don’t think I would have managed to produce 113 posts in that time if it wasn’t for the support of those who read this blog. Thank you. I really appreciate your contributions.
I published a list of 2015’s most popular posts, but for this milestone I would like to highlight some of my favourite posts:
And now I’m going to have a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits to celebrate properly.
A verb is irregular if its past tense and past participle do not follow the regular pattern of adding -ed (or -d) to the base form.
Regular verbs:
arrive – past tense arrived, past participle arrived cook – past tense cooked, past participle cooked
Irregular verbs:
eat – past tense ate, past participle eaten lose – past tense lost, past participle lost
Most native English speakers have a good grasp of which verbs they can’t stick -ed on the end of. To native ears, forms such as I catched or I have readed sound childish or unnatural. It isn’t always as obvious for non-native speakers.
Native speakers do sometimes find it difficult to pick the correct form for past tense and past participle. For example, is rang or rung the past participle of ring?
Simple present: I ring Simple past tense: I rang Past participle: I have/had rung
There isn’t really a rule or tip I can give to help here, except maybe to list all the forms. And so that’s what I have done. You can download a comprehensive (I think) list of irregular verb forms by visiting my Resources page or clicking this link: Irregular verbs.
I can’t claim that incorrectly spelling burgher as burger is a common, everyday mistake. But the mix-up does occur, especially in student essays.
Burger
Burgher
The spelling of burgher does vary in historical texts – the versions include burger, bourger and burgar. This is because the word was adopted from the original German or Dutch burger (meaning ‘citizen of a fortified town’) and only later assimilated to the English burgh (meaning ‘borough’).
Rumbustious means ‘boisterous’, ‘turbulent’ or ‘unruly’. It is thought to be late 18th century in origin, and it is probably an alteration of the word robustious. Robustious means ‘sturdy’, ‘boisterous’ or ‘rough or violent in manner’.
Rumbustious is typically used in British English. Rambunctious is a variation that originated in the United States and it is now slightly more common than the original (according to the OED).
I like this early usage of one of the many forms of rambunctious:
“Och, Misther McGeever, now..I niver heerd no man accuse you of bein’ anyway rambunkshus about yer nabor’s house.” Century Magazine, 1899
Affect and effect are often used incorrectly, particularly in student essays. In most contexts, affect is a verb and effect is a noun. When you affect something, it produces an effect – and I think that is where some of the confusion stems from.
Affect
Affect as a verb means ‘to influence or change’ or ‘to make a difference to’, and it is the most common use of affect.
The new rules will affect thousands of people.
It can sometimes mean ‘to pretend’ or ‘to take on or adopt something pretentiously’.
I affected a happy disposition. He was known to affect an American accent.
It has limited usage (usually related to psychology) as noun referring to an emotion or feeling.
His reaction displayed a happy affect.
Effect
Effect as a verb means ‘to do’ or ‘to bring about’.
I will effect change.
But the most common usage of effect is as a noun meaning ‘a result’.
It had an immediate effect.
The a, an or the test
If you struggle to work out which word you need to use, this simple test might help. Does a, an or the appear in front of it? Or if you inserted a, an or the would the sentence make sense?
The effect was insignificant. It couldanaffect your lifestyle.
If the answer is yes, you probably need effect (the noun). If the answer is no, you probably need affect (the verb).
Hannah McCall 