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Common English Usage Misconceptions
This list comprises widespread modern beliefs about English language usage that are documented by a reliable source to be misconceptions. With no authoritative language academy, guidance on English language usage can come from many sources. This can create problems, as described by Reginald Close: Teachers and textbook writers often invent rules which their students and readers repeat and perpetuate. These rules are usually statements about English usage which the authors imagine to be, ''as a rule'', true. But statements of this kind are extremely difficult to formulate both simply and accurately. They are rarely altogether true; often only partially true; sometimes contradicted by usage itself. Sometimes the contrary to them is also true. Many usage forms are commonly perceived as nonstandard or errors despite being either widely used or endorsed by authoritative descriptions. Perceived violations of correct English usage elicit visceral reactions in many people, or ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples that Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, migrated to Britain after its End of Roman rule in Britain, Roman occupiers left. English is the list of languages by total number of speakers, most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations) and the United States. English is the list of languages by number of native speakers, third-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish language, Spanish; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in list of countries and territories where English ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disputes In English Grammar
In the English language, there are grammatical constructions that many native speakers use unquestioningly yet certain writers call incorrect. Differences of usage or opinion may stem from differences between formal and informal speech and other matters of register, differences among dialects (whether regional, class-based, generational, or other), difference between the social norms of spoken and written English, and so forth. Disputes may arise when style guides disagree, when an older standard gradually loses traction, or when a guideline or judgment is confronted by large amounts of conflicting evidence or has its rationale challenged. Examples Some of the sources that consider some of the following examples incorrect consider the same examples to be acceptable in dialects other than Standard English or in an informal register; others consider certain constructions to be incorrect in any variety of English. On the other hand, many or all of the following examples are considered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gar03
Gars are an ancient group of ray-finned fish in the family Lepisosteidae. They comprise seven living species of fish in two genera that inhabit fresh, brackish, and occasionally marine waters of eastern North America, Central America and Cuba in the Caribbean, though extinct members of the family were more widespread. They are the only surviving members of the Ginglymodi, a clade of fish which first appeared during the Triassic period, over 240 million years ago, and are one of only two surviving groups of holosteian fish, alongside the bowfins, which have a similar distribution. Gars have elongated bodies that are heavily armored with ganoid scales, and fronted by similarly elongated jaws filled with long, sharp teeth. Gars are sometimes referred to as "garpike", but are not closely related to pike, which are in the fish family Esocidae. All of the gars are relatively large fish, but the alligator gar (''Atractosteus spatula'') is the largest; the alligator gar often gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Garner's Modern American Usage
''Garner's Modern English Usage'' (GMEU), written by Bryan A. Garner and published by Oxford University Press, is a usage dictionary and style guide (or "Linguistic prescription, prescriptive dictionary") for contemporary Modern English. It was first published in 1998 as ''A Dictionary of Modern American Usage'', with a focus on American English, which it retained for the next two editions as ''Garner's Modern American Usage'' (''GMAU''). It was expanded to cover English more broadly in the 2016 fourth edition, under the present title. The work covers issues of usage, pronunciation, and style, from distinctions among commonly confused words and phrases to notes on how to prevent verbosity and obscurity. In addition, it contains essays about the English language. An abridged version of the first edition was also published as ''The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style'' in 2000. Editions The first edition was published in 1998 as ''A Dictionary of Modern American Usage'', a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fowler's Modern English Usage
''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' (1926), by H. W. Fowler (1858–1933), is a style guide to British English usage and writing. It covers a wide range of topics that relate to usage, including: plurals, nouns, verbs, punctuation, cases, parentheses, quotation marks, the use of foreign terms, and so on. The dictionary became the standard for other style guides to writing in English. The 1926 first edition remains in print, along with the 1965 second edition, which is edited by Ernest Gowers, and was reprinted in 1983 and 1987. The 1996 third edition was re-titled as ''The New Fowler's Modern English Usage'', and revised in 2004, was mostly rewritten by Robert W. Burchfield, as a usage dictionary that incorporated corpus linguistics data; and the 2015 fourth edition, revised and re-titled ''Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', was edited by Jeremy Butterfield, as a usage dictionary. Informally, readers refer to the style guide and dictionary as ''Fowler's Moder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
But08
BUT, but or But may refer to: * ''but'', the adversative conjunction in English Businesses * British United Traction, British railway equipment and trolleybus manufacturer * BUT (retailer), a French retail store franchise Education * Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China * Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic Places * But, Opole Voivodeship, a village in Poland * Bathpalathang Airport, Bhutan (by IATA code) * Butterfly stop, a light-rail stop in Hong Kong (by MTR station code) * County of Bute, a historic county of Scotland (by Chapman code in genealogy) Other uses * but-, an organic chemical name component * But (surname), list of people so named * "BUT"/"Aishō", a 2007 J-Pop song by Koda Kumi * BUT National rail station code for Burton-on-Trent railway station England See also * Butt (other) * Butte (other) * Butts (other) Butts may refer to: People * Butts (surname) * Bob Butler (1891–1959), Ameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conjunction (grammar)
In grammar, a conjunction (List of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated or ) is a part of speech that connects Word, words, phrases, or Clause, clauses'','' which are called its conjuncts. That description is vague enough to overlap with those of other parts of speech because what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each language. In English language, English, a given word may have several Word sense, senses and in some contexts be a Preposition and postposition, preposition but a conjunction in others, depending on the syntax. For example, ''after'' is a preposition in "he left after the fight" but a conjunction in "he left after they fought". In general, a conjunction is an invariant (non-Inflection, inflecting) grammatical particle that stands between conjuncts. A conjunction may be placed at the beginning of a sentence, but some superstition about the practice persists. The definition may be extended to idiomatic phrases that behave as a unit and perform the same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Alford (theologian)
Henry Alford (7 October 181012 January 1871) was an English churchman, theologian, Textual Criticism, textual critic, scholar, poet, hymnodist, and writer. Life Alford was born at 25 Alfred Place, Bedford Square, London of a Somerset, Somersetshire family, which had given five consecutive generations of clergymen to the Anglican church. Alford's early years were passed with his widowed father, who was curate of Steeple Ashton in Wiltshire. He was a precocious lad, and before he was ten had written several Latin odes, a history of the Jews and a series of homiletic outlines. After a peripatetic school course he went up to Cambridge in 1827 as a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, Trinity in 1827. In 1832 he was 34th wrangler and 8th classic, and in 1834 was made a fellow of Trinity. Service He had already taken orders, and in 1835 began his eighteen years' tenure of the vicarage of Wymeswold in Leicestershire, from which seclusion the twice-repeated offer of a colonial Dioc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Split Infinitive
A split infinitive is a grammatical construction specific to English in which an adverb or adverbial phrase separates the "to" and "infinitive" constituents of what was traditionally called the "full infinitive", but is more commonly known in modern linguistics as the to-infinitive (e.g., ''to go''). In the history of English language aesthetics, the split infinitive was often deprecated, despite its prevalence in colloquial speech. The opening sequence of the ''Star Trek'' television series contains a well-known example, " to ''boldly'' go where no man has gone before", wherein the adverb ''boldly'' was said to split the full infinitive, ''to go''. Multiple words may split a to-infinitive, such as: "The population is expected to ''more than'' double in the next ten years." In the 19th century, some linguistic prescriptivists sought to forever disallow the split infinitive, and the resulting conflict had considerable cultural importance. The construction still renders disagreem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infinitives
Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The name is derived from Late Latin [] , a derivative of meaning "unlimited". In traditional descriptions of English language, English, the infinitive is the basic dictionary form of a verb when used non-finitely, with or without the particle to. Thus to go is an infinitive, as is ''go'' in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is a finite verb). The form without ''to'' is called the bare infinitive, and the form with ''to'' is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive. In many other languages the infinitive is a distinct single word, often with a characteristic inflective ending, like (" osing") in Portuguese, (" odie") in Spanish, (" oeat") in French, (" ocarry") in Latin and Italian, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Chicago Manual Of Style
''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (''CMOS'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 18 editions (the most recent in 2024) have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing. The guide specifically focuses on American English and deals with aspects of editorial practice, including grammar and usage, as well as document preparation and formatting. It is available in print as a hardcover book, and by subscription as a searchable website. The online version provides some free resources, primarily aimed at teachers, students, and libraries. Availability and uses ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' is published in hardcover and online. The online edition includes the searchable text of the 16th through 18th—its most recent—editions with features such as tools for editors, a citation guide summary, and searchable access to a Q&A, where University of Chicago Press editors answer readers' style questions. ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
