Paul Yeager's weather book
Paul Yeager's language book
Category Archives: language
Complement/Compliment
As a verb, to complement is to complete or to supplement. The wine complemented the meal. As a noun, complement is something that completes something else. The addition of the B6 vitamin to my morning routine now gives me a … Continue reading
Posted in language
Tagged compliment or complement, English, grammar error, language, writing
Comments Off on Complement/Compliment
Is It Amount, or Is It Number?
The number of times that I’ve seen these words confused is more than I can count—and that’s actually the point of the amount/number topic. Number refers to things that can be counted as individuals. Amount refers to a mass quantity, … Continue reading
Posted in grammar, language, writing
Tagged English, grammar error, language, number or amount, writing
Comments Off on Is It Amount, or Is It Number?
The “C” in Arctic Stands for Cold!
While the blast of bitterly cold Canadian air will be the major weather story across the country for the next several days, I thought that it was a good time to correct a common pronunciation (and possibly spelling) error. The … Continue reading
Posted in grammar, language, weather, writing
Tagged Arctic, Artic, English, language, meteorology, spelling errors, writing
2 Comments
Quarter of a Century of Sports Cliches
One of my favorite chapters in the book I wrote (Is having a favorite chapter in my own book against author etiquette?) is the one on sports cliches since we’ve been talking about sports (fans, media, and athletes) for much … Continue reading
Posted in grammar, language, sports, writing
Tagged Gene Collier, language, manage the game, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Sports cliches
Comments Off on Quarter of a Century of Sports Cliches
Stationary versus Stationery
There are certain lessons—and when I say lessons, of course, I mean grammar lessons—that we always remember having been taught, and this is one of them for me. I still recall my elementary-school teacher explaining the difference between stationary, which … Continue reading
Posted in grammar, language, writing
Tagged English, grammar error, language, stationary, stationery, writing
Comments Off on Stationary versus Stationery
Pangs or Pains?
This is as close to fast-food week as we’re ever going to get here at languageandgrammar.com. Not only did I recently talk about the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, but now I’m talking about a topic that’s been featured in a recent McDonald’s … Continue reading
Posted in grammar, language, writing
Tagged English, grammar error, hunger pains, hunger pangs, language
Comments Off on Pangs or Pains?
12 Million Reasons
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: While not all of us care about using proper grammar at all times, we all have at least one language pet peeve. As you’ll notice from the Pet Peeves page on … Continue reading
Posted in grammar, language, writing
Tagged 12 million reasons, English, Kevin Millwood, language pet peeves, major league baseball, mlbtraderumors, writing
3 Comments
Coldest I’ve Ever Been
It is with great shame that I must report that I have to write about one of my own language failings. When it was bitterly cold the other morning, I reported that I’ve never been that cold before. While I … Continue reading
Posted in grammar, language, writing
Tagged English, grammar, I've never been that cold before, imprecise language
7 Comments
Top Ten Top 10 Lists of 2008
It’s late in December, and that means that it’s time for one of the most annoying traditions of the year (no, I don’t mean Christmas, but seriously, haven’t we had enough of Christmas already?). It means that it’s time for … Continue reading
Everything Language and Grammar 