Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a prepositional puzzle in which each answer has a noun on either end of the words on the. For example, if you want to get the average person’s views, you might seek out a male adult standing in the road. In that case...
Why do we turn proper nouns, like JC Penney or Kroger, into possessives, as in, Penny’s or Kroger’s? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Plural Business Names” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Debbie from Indianapolis...
Is a number a noun or an adjective? Even dictionary editors struggle with how to classify parts of speech. Like color, such words often lie along a spectrum, and asking at what point the number seven goes from a noun to an adjective is like asking...
What’s the plural of cyclops? If you have a group of those one-eyed mythical monsters, your best bet is cyclopes, pronounced sye-KLOH-peez. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Plural of Cyclops” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi...
We have collective nouns for animals, like “a gaggle of geese,” “a pride of lions,” and “an exaltation of larks.” So why not collective nouns for plants? How about a “greasing of palms,” or a “pursing of tulips”? Also, the difference between further...
How do children acquire language? Do they start with nouns, like “Mama” and “cat,” then graduate to verbs and other parts of speech? Grant explains that language acquisition starts even earlier, with children simply emulating sounds they hear...