#englishusage — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #englishusage, aggregated by home.social.
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Saw "nonhabit-forming" in a book and wanted to parse it (nonsensically) as "forming of non-habit".
I wrote about these tricky hyphens once: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/non-life-threatening-unselfconscious-hyphens/
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Saw "nonhabit-forming" in a book and wanted to parse it (nonsensically) as "forming of non-habit".
I wrote about these tricky hyphens once: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/non-life-threatening-unselfconscious-hyphens/
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Saw "nonhabit-forming" in a book and wanted to parse it (nonsensically) as "forming of non-habit".
I wrote about these tricky hyphens once: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/non-life-threatening-unselfconscious-hyphens/
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Saw "nonhabit-forming" in a book and wanted to parse it (nonsensically) as "forming of non-habit".
I wrote about these tricky hyphens once: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/non-life-threatening-unselfconscious-hyphens/
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Saw "nonhabit-forming" in a book and wanted to parse it (nonsensically) as "forming of non-habit".
I wrote about these tricky hyphens once: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/non-life-threatening-unselfconscious-hyphens/
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I’ve been noticing more novel compound words. I just saw “freewill” in a book. My 1985 Macquarie Dictionary (AU) has entries only for “free will” and “free-will”. Is this a shift of a computer age? Maybe I see these compounds most in news headlines? Checking now I see a headline about “sunscreen” - and I’m surprised to find it’s not even mentioned in my old Macquarie! Nor is “sun-block”. Another in today’s news is “ceasefire” which has a hyphen in Macquarie. I wonder if hyphens drop out over time. #EnglishUsage
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I’ve been noticing more novel compound words. I just saw “freewill” in a book. My 1985 Macquarie Dictionary (AU) has entries only for “free will” and “free-will”. Is this a shift of a computer age? Maybe I see these compounds most in news headlines? Checking now I see a headline about “sunscreen” - and I’m surprised to find it’s not even mentioned in my old Macquarie! Nor is “sun-block”. Another in today’s news is “ceasefire” which has a hyphen in Macquarie. I wonder if hyphens drop out over time. #EnglishUsage
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I’ve been noticing more novel compound words. I just saw “freewill” in a book. My 1985 Macquarie Dictionary (AU) has entries only for “free will” and “free-will”. Is this a shift of a computer age? Maybe I see these compounds most in news headlines? Checking now I see a headline about “sunscreen” - and I’m surprised to find it’s not even mentioned in my old Macquarie! Nor is “sun-block”. Another in today’s news is “ceasefire” which has a hyphen in Macquarie. I wonder if hyphens drop out over time. #EnglishUsage
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I’ve been noticing more novel compound words. I just saw “freewill” in a book. My 1985 Macquarie Dictionary (AU) has entries only for “free will” and “free-will”. Is this a shift of a computer age? Maybe I see these compounds most in news headlines? Checking now I see a headline about “sunscreen” - and I’m surprised to find it’s not even mentioned in my old Macquarie! Nor is “sun-block”. Another in today’s news is “ceasefire” which has a hyphen in Macquarie. I wonder if hyphens drop out over time. #EnglishUsage
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I’ve been noticing more novel compound words. I just saw “freewill” in a book. My 1985 Macquarie Dictionary (AU) has entries only for “free will” and “free-will”. Is this a shift of a computer age? Maybe I see these compounds most in news headlines? Checking now I see a headline about “sunscreen” - and I’m surprised to find it’s not even mentioned in my old Macquarie! Nor is “sun-block”. Another in today’s news is “ceasefire” which has a hyphen in Macquarie. I wonder if hyphens drop out over time. #EnglishUsage
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Saw this sentence with both the Irish English "give out" and a standardized-English "give out":
"The banks often give out¹ that the rules are too tight and they can’t give out² the money people need."
¹ complain
² issue, distributeSource and commentary: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/giving-out-irish-style/
#language #dialect #idioms #IrishEnglish #EnglishUsage #phrases
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Saw this sentence with both the Irish English "give out" and a standardized-English "give out":
"The banks often give out¹ that the rules are too tight and they can’t give out² the money people need."
¹ complain
² issue, distributeSource and commentary: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/giving-out-irish-style/
#language #dialect #idioms #IrishEnglish #EnglishUsage #phrases
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Saw this sentence with both the Irish English "give out" and a standardized-English "give out":
"The banks often give out¹ that the rules are too tight and they can’t give out² the money people need."
¹ complain
² issue, distributeSource and commentary: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/giving-out-irish-style/
#language #dialect #idioms #IrishEnglish #EnglishUsage #phrases
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Saw this sentence with both the Irish English "give out" and a standardized-English "give out":
"The banks often give out¹ that the rules are too tight and they can’t give out² the money people need."
¹ complain
² issue, distributeSource and commentary: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/giving-out-irish-style/
#language #dialect #idioms #IrishEnglish #EnglishUsage #phrases
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Saw this sentence with both the Irish English "give out" and a standardized-English "give out":
"The banks often give out¹ that the rules are too tight and they can’t give out² the money people need."
¹ complain
² issue, distributeSource and commentary: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/giving-out-irish-style/
#language #dialect #idioms #IrishEnglish #EnglishUsage #phrases
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On the peculiarly Irish use of "grand", from Garrett's Carr's novel The Boy from the Sea
More on that usage here: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2019/06/27/a-grand-irish-usage/
#books #IrishBooks #reading #GarrettCarr #words #grand #EnglishUsage #Ireland #IrishEnglish
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On the peculiarly Irish use of "grand", from Garrett's Carr's novel The Boy from the Sea
More on that usage here: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2019/06/27/a-grand-irish-usage/
#books #IrishBooks #reading #GarrettCarr #words #grand #EnglishUsage #Ireland #IrishEnglish
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On the peculiarly Irish use of "grand", from Garrett's Carr's novel The Boy from the Sea
More on that usage here: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2019/06/27/a-grand-irish-usage/
#books #IrishBooks #reading #GarrettCarr #words #grand #EnglishUsage #Ireland #IrishEnglish
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On the peculiarly Irish use of "grand", from Garrett's Carr's novel The Boy from the Sea
More on that usage here: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2019/06/27/a-grand-irish-usage/
#books #IrishBooks #reading #GarrettCarr #words #grand #EnglishUsage #Ireland #IrishEnglish
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On the peculiarly Irish use of "grand", from Garrett's Carr's novel The Boy from the Sea
More on that usage here: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2019/06/27/a-grand-irish-usage/
#books #IrishBooks #reading #GarrettCarr #words #grand #EnglishUsage #Ireland #IrishEnglish
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Missed this last month – Language Hat followed up on my post about pronoun use for animals. Lots of interesting comments: https://languagehat.com/animals-who/
#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #writing
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Missed this last month – Language Hat followed up on my post about pronoun use for animals. Lots of interesting comments: https://languagehat.com/animals-who/
#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #writing
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Missed this last month – Language Hat followed up on my post about pronoun use for animals. Lots of interesting comments: https://languagehat.com/animals-who/
#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #writing
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Missed this last month – Language Hat followed up on my post about pronoun use for animals. Lots of interesting comments: https://languagehat.com/animals-who/
#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #writing
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Missed this last month – Language Hat followed up on my post about pronoun use for animals. Lots of interesting comments: https://languagehat.com/animals-who/
#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #writing
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The collective noun suggester is suggesting that the collective noun for misheard words is: a quiver of errors.
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The collective noun suggester is suggesting that the collective noun for misheard words is: a quiver of errors.
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The collective noun suggester is suggesting that the collective noun for misheard words is: a quiver of errors.
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The collective noun suggester is suggesting that the collective noun for misheard words is: a quiver of errors.
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The collective noun suggester is suggesting that the collective noun for misheard words is: a quiver of errors.
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Words¹ misspelled² so often, even in edited text, that my copy-editor's heart does a little happy dance when I see them spelled appropriately:
ad nauseam, complement, its, just deserts, led, minuscule, principle, supersede
¹ In a broad sense, to include phrases.
² The descriptivist in me protests the implicit judgement, but "spelled in a nonstandardized way" is on the wordy side for a throwaway Mastodon post.#language #spelling #words #EnglishUsage #editing #copyediting #proofreading
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Words¹ misspelled² so often, even in edited text, that my copy-editor's heart does a little happy dance when I see them spelled appropriately:
ad nauseam, complement, its, just deserts, led, minuscule, principle, supersede
¹ In a broad sense, to include phrases.
² The descriptivist in me protests the implicit judgement, but "spelled in a nonstandardized way" is on the wordy side for a throwaway Mastodon post.#language #spelling #words #EnglishUsage #editing #copyediting #proofreading
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Words¹ misspelled² so often, even in edited text, that my copy-editor's heart does a little happy dance when I see them spelled appropriately:
ad nauseam, complement, its, just deserts, led, minuscule, principle, supersede
¹ In a broad sense, to include phrases.
² The descriptivist in me protests the implicit judgement, but "spelled in a nonstandardized way" is on the wordy side for a throwaway Mastodon post.#language #spelling #words #EnglishUsage #editing #copyediting #proofreading
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Words¹ misspelled² so often, even in edited text, that my copy-editor's heart does a little happy dance when I see them spelled appropriately:
ad nauseam, complement, its, just deserts, led, minuscule, principle, supersede
¹ In a broad sense, to include phrases.
² The descriptivist in me protests the implicit judgement, but "spelled in a nonstandardized way" is on the wordy side for a throwaway Mastodon post.#language #spelling #words #EnglishUsage #editing #copyediting #proofreading
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Words¹ misspelled² so often, even in edited text, that my copy-editor's heart does a little happy dance when I see them spelled appropriately:
ad nauseam, complement, its, just deserts, led, minuscule, principle, supersede
¹ In a broad sense, to include phrases.
² The descriptivist in me protests the implicit judgement, but "spelled in a nonstandardized way" is on the wordy side for a throwaway Mastodon post.#language #spelling #words #EnglishUsage #editing #copyediting #proofreading
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It seems like a small thing, but I tend to notice what pronouns people use when they refer to animals. Here's a new blog post about it:
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2025/12/15/a-list-of-animals-who/#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #books #writing
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It seems like a small thing, but I tend to notice what pronouns people use when they refer to animals. Here's a new blog post about it:
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2025/12/15/a-list-of-animals-who/#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #books #writing
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It seems like a small thing, but I tend to notice what pronouns people use when they refer to animals. Here's a new blog post about it:
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2025/12/15/a-list-of-animals-who/#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #books #writing
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It seems like a small thing, but I tend to notice what pronouns people use when they refer to animals. Here's a new blog post about it:
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2025/12/15/a-list-of-animals-who/#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #books #writing
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It seems like a small thing, but I tend to notice what pronouns people use when they refer to animals. Here's a new blog post about it:
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2025/12/15/a-list-of-animals-who/#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #books #writing
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Fun example of semantic drift, but is it restricted to one person? Let me know if you've encountered this reading of "take it offline", from Gen Z or elsewhere
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amandabrummitt_i-spend-a-lot-of-time-talking-about-communication-activity-7402116821522567168-T5vD -
Fun example of semantic drift, but is it restricted to one person? Let me know if you've encountered this reading of "take it offline", from Gen Z or elsewhere
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amandabrummitt_i-spend-a-lot-of-time-talking-about-communication-activity-7402116821522567168-T5vD -
Fun example of semantic drift, but is it restricted to one person? Let me know if you've encountered this reading of "take it offline", from Gen Z or elsewhere
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amandabrummitt_i-spend-a-lot-of-time-talking-about-communication-activity-7402116821522567168-T5vD -
Fun example of semantic drift, but is it restricted to one person? Let me know if you've encountered this reading of "take it offline", from Gen Z or elsewhere
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amandabrummitt_i-spend-a-lot-of-time-talking-about-communication-activity-7402116821522567168-T5vD -
Fun example of semantic drift, but is it restricted to one person? Let me know if you've encountered this reading of "take it offline", from Gen Z or elsewhere
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amandabrummitt_i-spend-a-lot-of-time-talking-about-communication-activity-7402116821522567168-T5vD -
In the conventional spelling, "drinks cabinet", "drinks" is used attributively; there's no need to invoke the possessive case. But you do see occasional variation with compounds like this
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In the conventional spelling, "drinks cabinet", "drinks" is used attributively; there's no need to invoke the possessive case. But you do see occasional variation with compounds like this
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In the conventional spelling, "drinks cabinet", "drinks" is used attributively; there's no need to invoke the possessive case. But you do see occasional variation with compounds like this
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In the conventional spelling, "drinks cabinet", "drinks" is used attributively; there's no need to invoke the possessive case. But you do see occasional variation with compounds like this
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In the conventional spelling, "drinks cabinet", "drinks" is used attributively; there's no need to invoke the possessive case. But you do see occasional variation with compounds like this