Ashley Campbell's Writer's Log
There's no Q in barbecue
(and other common errors)
Grammar Nazis get hot under the collar about all sorts of things. I’ve already covered a few of them in some depth: apostrophes, collective nouns, overuse of capital letters and incorrect use of personal and impersonal pronouns.
Here are a few that don’t need an entire Writer’s Log to themselves, but which I’d like to get off my chest anyway.
Accommodation has two Cs and two Ms; programme also has two Ms and an E, unless, and only if, it’s a computer program or you’re North American.
Sceptic has a K only in North America (and some Canadians would say only in the US). Everywhere else, it has two Cs. Have doubts? Set your spellchecker to any other English and try.
When you are trying to show the differences between similar things, you compare WITH (I am quite short, compared with my sisters); when you are trying to show the similarities between very different things, you compare TO (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?).
Literally means actually, in the literal or true sense of the word or phrase. If it’s literally raining cats and dogs, felines and canines are physically falling from the sky — which sounds messy and as if the SPCA should be involved. If they’re not, the word you’re looking for is metaphorically, which means “it’s as if there were …” or “it’s like there were ...” If metaphorically is, like, too big a word for comfort, use, like, like – or as if.
That defines, which elaborates. The car that passed by was red: the car is defined by passing by, it also happens to be red. The car, which passed by, was yellow: the car is defined as being yellow and, incidentally, it passed by.
Except in North America, an ass is a donkey and nothing more. If you want to refer to the part of your anatomy you sit on (or the part of another person’s anatomy that looks damned fine in jeans) the word you’re looking for is arse. You can make either an ass or an arse of yourself — I guess it all depends on what you do.
Who’s means “who is”. Whose is a possessive pronoun — it tells you that one thing or person owns another thing. “Whose dog?” means you’re asking who the dog belongs to. “Who’s Dog?” means you’re asking who Dog is, and that the people you associate with aren’t particularly imaginative when it comes to nicknames.
Oh, and unless you’re abbreviating to BBQ, there’s no Q in barbecue. Even in North America.
© Ashley Campbell, 2009 |
