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Setting a record for the longest time playing a keyboard means keeping at it continually, while an unbroken stretch of straight road is continuous. Continual and continuous: these words look almost the same, surely they mean pretty much the same thing? Well, not quite. Continuous is the word that means what you think you think
What is a verb? Nouns are like shipping containers: they are the holders of the meaning we want to convey. Verbs are like trucks: they are words we use to convey meaning (nouns) to other people. In fact, these two parts of speech are the key drivers of language. You could almost do away with
What is a collective noun? A collective noun is simply a noun that describes a group of things, such as a herd of wildebeest. Collective nouns are different from the categories of nouns I have written about in the last few weeks, because they are more a subgroup of nouns rather than a way of
Straits and straights The Turkish Straits, looking from Europe to Asia Straightlaced or straitlaced? Straightjacket or straitjacket? Bass Straight or Bass Strait? These words are increasingly being confused, even in reputable newspapers. In one way, this is a good thing: it shows we have completely forgotten a particularly vicious fashion in women’s clothing. On the
Mass or count? In this stunning photograph, we use two nouns to describe what we can see: we see two penguins on ice. And these two nouns demonstrate the final way nouns can be divided: into count nouns and mass nouns. Count nouns are also sometimes called unit nouns (in that unhelpful way in English
Abstract or concrete? Making your writing clearer Another useful way to divide nouns is to separate them into the categories of abstract and concrete. This does not stop them being proper or common; it is simply another way to look at them. This means that proper nouns can also be abstract or concrete, and common
Proper or common? Of queens, receptionists and capital letters One useful way to split up the infinite number of nouns is to divide them into common and proper nouns. It is a useful division, because proper nouns are a very strange group of nouns: in several ways, they have quite different characteristics from all other
Principal and principle: two words that have five commonly used but different meanings between them: an idea or philosophical concept one of the key parts of a code of behaviour or morality (usually used as a plural) a lump of money that is invested or borrowed with interest the head of school or other organisation
Nouns are the largest, and one of the two most important, category in the parts of speech. The precise number of nouns is unknowable and uncountable: there are as many nouns as there stars in the sky – or, if each start had a name, this would literally be true, as each of those names
The parts of speech is simply the term used to describe the group of functions that words carry out in speech and writing. One of the hardest things to cope with in English is the fact that most of the ‘rules’ aren’t black and white, and it can hard to pin exact answers to any