Linguistics
Grammarposium: Nouns, Adjectives, and DeterminersI am excited to announce my first Grammarposium: Nouns, Adjectives, and Determiners. The online, real-time class offers an exploration of the...
May 24, 2020- Thieves, Knives, and Chiefs and English Plurals
English is rule-based. I repeat: Like all languages, English is rule-based. A tweet recently appeared in my Twitter feed in which...
May 3, 2020 - The Word ‘another’ Is Not an Adjective
If I had to pick a single grammar topic to focus on for the rest of my life, I would likely...
March 6, 2020 - Zero Phones and Markers: Not All Letters Spell Sounds
Writing is not sounds written down. The primary function of English spelling is to represent meaning. Sounds do matter, but not...
February 29, 2020 - Is “Some Years Back” Grammatically Correct?
Earlier today I came across a tweet that argued against the use of the word back in the phrase some years...
February 4, 2020 - Why Are <talk>, <walk>, and <stalk> Spelled with <l>?
Yesterday I introduced my 5-year-old to the words <talk> and <walk>. He knows that graphemes can spell sounds, specifically that <l>...
February 3, 2020 - Why Is <broad> Spelled with the <oa> Digraph?
Yesterday I posted on my social media about the spelling of the word <broad>. I just introduced the <oa> grapheme to...
January 23, 2020 - Word Matrix: Leve
I always misspell the word <relevant> as <*relavant> based on a thinking that <relevant> is related to <relative>. I recently decided...
January 22, 2020 - <*tion> Is Not an English Suffix
<*tion> is not an English suffix. I repeat: <*tion> is not an English suffix. I previously wrote a post entitled The...
January 17, 2020 - <Urine> and My Phonics Phail
I grew up in the 1990s. I entered kindergarten in 1990 and began learning to read that year. Phonics and sight...
January 15, 2020 - From Felines to Street Drugs to Zero Phones: <cat>, <methcathinone>, and <ephedron>
You never know where a word study will take you. A while back, my oldest and I did a word study...
December 20, 2019 - Language Is Arbitrary
Language is arbitrary. I recently stated that language is arbitrary on Twitter in response to the erroneous claim that language is...
December 14, 2019 - Lies Your Grammar Teacher Told You: Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Determiners
As I have written repeatedly, the line between grammatical forms is blurry at best, especially among lexical categories like noun, verb,...
November 27, 2019 - Word Matrix: Anxi
<Anxi> ”uneasy, troubled in mind” from Latin anxius Note: The base is <anxi>. The <i> is part of the base because...
September 28, 2019 - Introducing ‘Structure and Meaning of Periphrastic Modal Verbs in Modern American English’
If you have ever browsed my About Us page, you will know that I earned a BA in English studies with...
September 24, 2019
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