Origins – Saying ‘No!’ to Oneself.
Abnegate is derived from Latin ab-, away (as in absent), plus nego, to deny – self-abnegation, then, is self-denial. Nego…
Category: English Editing
Pronouns and Case – Myself and Other Selves.
The -self words have various more or less acceptable uses in English, including these: X. as emphatic pronouns, as in…
Origins – The flesh and All.
Carnivorous combines carnis, flesh, and voro, to devour. A carnivorous animal, or carnivore, is one whose main diet is meat.…
Putting Nouns into the Plural – Words ending in -F or -FE.
Some of these words change their ending to -ves in the plural, but some end simply in -s. A few…
Origins – Soundings.
Cacophony is itself a harsh-sounding word – and is the only one that exactly describes the unmusical, grating, ear-offending noises…
Grammar – A Batch of Papers Has/Have Arrived.
Generally, a subject consisting of a singular noun plus an of-phrase takes a singular verb: A flock of sheep was…
Origins – Doing and Feeling.
If you watch a furious athletic event, and you get tired, though the athletes expend all the energy – that’s…
Grammar – What is a Sentence?
So much, then, for the individual parts of speech. In isolation they mean little. Only when words form part of…