Persons or People?

People.

For practical purposes, people is basically always right. Except for those few times when persons is right… Continue reading →

Blue Riband

Yes.

Riband.

Weird, eh? Continue reading →

The Metal Umlaut

You’ve probably seen a lot of umlauts in your lifetime. They’re common in German, and look like this: ö. Those two little dots over a little vowel. English of course also has an identical diacritic, the diaeresis. But I already told you that. What I want to look at today though is the umlaut, and one type of umlaut in particular: the metal umlaut. Continue reading →

A Toast!

You can have lovely buttered toast for breakfast, but you can also raise a toast to someone. Why do we use the word toast in such completely different ways? Continue reading →

Of Course!

Anyone who writes fairly regularly develops certain habits. Repeated words, expressions, stylistic tricks. I’ve noticed that as I write, there are certain things I keep doing. Like using of course a lot, for example. Continue reading →

Ready, Steady, Stop!

You might understandably be confused if you heard someone say this. At least if you’re in an English-speaking country. Continue reading →

Counsel or Council?

It’s spelled counsel, of course. Look, I could easily write a lot of words about how stupid Donald Trump is. Mostly because it’s true. But instead, let’s have a look at why the poor man has such trouble with the word counsel.

Continue reading →