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Confusing words – Homophones

HOMONYMS are words that sound alike but have different meanings. Homophones are a type of homonym that also sound alike and have different meanings, but have different spellings. Let’s discuss the some of the most confusing words here: Affect: To change or influence something             The rain did not affect me. Effect: Something that happens due to a cause             What was …

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What are Interjections?

Words like Hey! Hurray! Wuhoo! Oh my! (and many more) help us express sudden emotions or strong feelings. These words are called Interjections. They are usually used at the start of a sentence and may express surprise, disgust, shock, joy or excitement. Also, they are not grammatically related to the rest of the sentence. Ouch! …

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Learned or Learnt?

English is a tricky language – it has so many variants spoken all over the world that one is almost always in doubt about the usage of certain words or phrases. The Past Participle and Past Tense of the verb to learn is yet another example. To  learn means to acquire knowledge of, or skill in, something …

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What does [sic] imply?

You must have seen several status updates or tweets that mention sic in square brackets and wondered what it means (I certainly did!) . Let’s solve the mystery today! Sic is short for the Latin word sic erat scriptum, or ‘thus was it written’.  It means that the quoted text has been reproduced as it …

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