I always laugh to myself when I see the word “sceptical” in the Economist or a British book. It doesn’t matter that I’ve read the word for years; somehow I always pronounce it to myself in a way that brings to mind sewage (as in “septic tanks”). I think “skeptic” is one of the best [...]

When I was about ten years old I started a journal. It went something like this: “We spent the night at our aunt’s house today. We watched a movie at night. We went to be at eight o’clock. We woke up at seven o’clock, and she wasn’t awake yet so we read books. We had [...]

There’s a strange little phrase that I hear pretty often: “once and for all.” Seems like it should be “once for all,” as in, “”I’m tired of saying this over and over; let’s settle it once (one time) for all (all the times).”
I’ve noticed many writers who do say “once for all,” but a lot [...]

You may know this instinctively already, or you may have overlooked it for some time like I did. At any rate, it doesn’t seem like schools do a good job addressing the common mistake of confusing “may” and “might.” Actually, “might” is the past tense of “may,” just like “could” is the past tense of [...]

Shari Wilson, a college teacher for years, noticed that many students in her composition courses earned about a letter grade higher when they wrote their essays in class. She tried to figure out why a real paper and pen made such a big difference in writing quality, but she could only speculate. One of her [...]

[Semi-technical!]
In tenth grade English I read Francis Bacon’s essays for the first time. While I perused the one called “Of Great Place,” I came across the following statement: “[I]n evil the best condition is not to will; the second, not to can.” For a moment I was perplexed. What could Bacon mean by “to can”? [...]

Here is something that has troubled me for some time: not all pronouns are pronouns. Doubt it? Let me explain.
A pronoun, according to almost any dictionary, is a word that takes the place of a noun. For example, instead of saying “John throws the ball,” I can say “He throws it.” Simple enough. Now, inside [...]

Hello everyone. A new blog has just been born. Word Miner is where we’ll tunnel into the mountain of English for wordy wealth. Practical writing tips, obscure grammatical details, research technique, literary nuggets - anything’s game. This site is for people who love writing and saying; the point is to explore our wonderful language and [...]