English language

‘Practice’ or ‘practise’?

Hannah McCall 8 Comments

Confusion over the use of practice and practise is common. For most varieties of English, practice is the spelling for the noun and practise is the spelling for the verb.

Verb:

I practise every day.

Noun:

It is my practice to write every day.

If it is a thing, use practice. If it is an action, use practise. I find it helpful to link them to advice and advise. Most English speakers instantly know the difference:

Verb:

I advice advise you to stop.

Noun:

I gave you some advise advice.

The word with the -ice ending is a noun. The word ending with -ise is a verb. And you can apply that to practice and practise.

In American English, practice is the dominant spelling for the noun and the verb. However, the distinction is sometimes observed.

‘Pair’, ‘pare’ and ‘pear’

Hannah McCall Leave a comment

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

  • a set of two
  • a thing with two joined parts (e.g. a pair of shorts)
  • to put together to form a pair

Pare

  • to trim by cutting away the outer edge or layer
  • to reduce something

Pear

  • the edible fruit and its tree

 

Lallygag

Hannah McCall 6 Comments

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).

‘Ingenious’ and ‘ingenuous’

Hannah McCall 5 Comments

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

  • clever, inventive and/or original
  • displaying cleverness or originality; well suited for its intended purpose

Ingenuous

  • innocent, trusting or unsuspecting; unsophisticated
  • honest and straightforward

You can work out which word you need by remembering that a genius is often ingenious.

Pie-biter

Hannah McCall 1 Comment

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.

Irregular verbs

Hannah McCall 5 Comments

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.

‘Burger’ and ‘burgher’

Hannah McCall 9 Comments

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

  • a flat round of meat or other food that is fried or grilled and often served in a bread roll

Burgher

  • a (typically wealthy) citizen of a town or city
  • (in southern Africa) an Afrikaans citizen of a Boer republic; a civilian member of a local militia
  • (in Sri Lanka) a descendant of Dutch or Portuguese colonists

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

Hannah McCall 3 Comments

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’

Hannah McCall 20 Comments

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 could an affect your lifestyle.

If the answer is yes, you probably need effect (the noun). If the answer is no, you probably need affect (the verb).

‘Gourmand’ and ‘gourmet’

Hannah McCall 3 Comments

Gourmand and gourmet have similar meanings, and they can be used as synonyms. However, one is typically considered to be more complimentary than the other.

A gourmand is a person who enjoys eating and often eats to excess. The original (15th century) meaning was ‘glutton’. Although it later acquired the meaning of ‘a judge of good food’, gourmand is not usually a flattering description.

A gourmet is a person with a refined taste in food. It has always had this meaning (originating in the early 19th century). You can use gourmet attributively (e.g. ‘a gourmet meal’) but you cannot do so with gourmand.

If you wish to compliment someone on their excellent palate, gourmet is the word to use.