Pronunciation | The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

What Is an Indefinite Article?

GrammarBook.com — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 12:00:00 +0000

Indefinite articles are small but integral parts of English grammar. Today we’ll discuss what an indefinite article is and how it serves communication. What Is an Indefinite Article? An indefinite article is simply the word “a” or “an” used before a noun. It denotes the class to which a noun belongs but does not make […]

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Lead vs. Led: Do You Know the Difference?

GrammarBook.com — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 15:00:06 +0000

The English language is filled with tricky words. One such word is lead. With just four simple letters, it can have different pronunciations and distinctive meanings based on use and context. Let’s look at why that is, and how you can use lead correctly in its different forms. What You Should Know About the Word […]

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The Diversity of American English Dialects

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 05:00:42 +0000

Americans share a common language, but as in other countries, not all people speak it the same way. The U.S. has its own family of dialects that differ by region within its 3.8 million square miles. People establish a dialect when they live together within set social or geographical boundaries over time. As they use […]

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That’s nyooz to me

GrammarBook.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 13:00:06 +0000

Pronunciation changes gradually through the years—that’s evolution, and nothing could be more natural. But nowadays, if an influential public figure goes on TV or the Internet and says a word wrong, millions of people hear it, and the mispronunciation may gain an undeserved legitimacy. That isn’t evolution, it’s weeds taking over a rose garden. Virtually […]

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2019’s Word of the Year is Inclusive, Not Divisive

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 05:00:38 +0000

Have you heard that Merriam-Webster chose the word they as the “Word of the Year”? And that it was chosen as the “Word of the Decade” by the American Dialect Society? We are not surprised. You probably recall that we ran three articles in July-August 2019 discussing the singular they (How Did They Get in […]

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Mixing Miscellany Again

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 05:00:07 +0000

Our study of American English grammar and style sometimes gathers bits too small to feature yet worthy to gather for group exploration. In 2018, we discussed such medleys twice: Exploring Some English Miscellany More Mulling Over Miscellany This year we’ve continued tracking items of note that we receive from our readers. Let’s look at several […]

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Play It Again, Sam

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 09 Oct 2019 05:00:49 +0000

It has been a while since our last pronunciation column, so here’s another group of familiar words whose traditional pronunciations may surprise you. (Note: capital letters denote a stressed syllable.) Antarctica Like the elusive first r in February, the first c in this word is often carelessly dropped: it’s ant-ARC-tica, not ant-AR-tica. Err Since to err is to make an error, […]

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More on “More Ear-itating Word Abuse”

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 05:00:16 +0000

Last month we reran More Ear-itating Word Abuse by our late writer Tom Stern. The article first appeared in August 2013. We heard from many readers, and their comments were just about evenly split between: For years I’ve hated hearing people mispronounce these words. Thank you for shining a spotlight on this subject. and You […]

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More Ear-itating Word Abuse

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 05:00:57 +0000

Although Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star has faded, the erstwhile weight lifter-actor-governor hasn’t quite left the building. Recently, a phonics teacher e-mailed her exasperation with broadcasters who mispronounce the first syllable in “Schwarzenegger,” saying “swartz” instead of “shwartz.” “There IS a difference!” she said. “It’s gotten to the point that it’s like nails on a chalkboard when […]

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A Real Feather-Ruffler

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 05:00:28 +0000

Up until the late eighteenth century, Brits spoke with an American accent. So says the noted language scholar Patricia T. O’Conner. The “English” accent as we know it didn’t develop until the late 1700s. That’s when British snobs started doing things like dropping r’s, adding and subtracting h’s, saying “pahst” instead of “past,” and “sec-ra-tree” and “mill-a-tree” […]

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