I've heard a couple of pronunciations "macra may", "ma craym", "ma craym". So, which is the correct one?

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There are plenty of words where 's' is behind 'n'. Snake Snowfall Or if you desire something else: Mesner Visne Esne Puisne The next word I am about to give you may answer your second question: Fresne This is actually a French word. You can probably draw the connecti...

I constantly see "everyday" being used in cases where the writer really means "every day". For example, here's a sentence from Google's eBooks documentation: "New titles are being added to Google eBooks everyday." There is even a supermarket chain that has a large sign saying, "Low prices, every...

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language says this: Echo what is syntactically very different from the interrogative pronoun what. It can replace words of more or less any category, and can take on the inflectional properties of that category — cf. You bought three whats? or even They ha...

Typically (as far as I can think), the interject is something vulgar. For example: "Radio-bloody-active" (from an episode of Family Guy) "Ri-god-damn-diculuous" "Un-f***ing-believable" What is the word for this construct?

Both are fine. English is wonderful like this. There are 100 people going to the party, so I expect that it will be a good night. There are 100 people going to the party, so I expect it will be a good night. There are 100 people going to the party, so I expect a good night. There are 100 peo...

This popped into my head yesterday and it's been bothering me. I know that both vigor and rigor are Latin derivates (vigorem and rigorem), which mean approximately "lively" and "stiff" respectively. They seem like opposites in Latin, and I don't know enough Latin to figure out whether their roo...

What's the difference between 'dived' and 'dove' as the past tense of 'to dive'? 'Spelled' and 'spelt'(to spell)? There are others which are similar. Is one form British usage?

Proofing a manuscript, I found this in the middle of a chase scene: Spotting an opening, I dived into it and was horrified to find it was a dead end. Is “dived” a valid past tense of the verb “dive”? I've always used “dove”, but I'm not certain what the use is in UK English. Cambridge sh...

I learned at school that irregular verbs are slowly disappearing from the language: "spelled" is more used than "spelt", "learned" than "learnt", etc. But recently, someone told me that some new irregular forms are created: "snuck" instead of "sneaked", etc. Questions are: Is my understanding ab...

In the following sentence, should I say spelled or spelt: You spelt/spelled "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" wrong.

Why do we have a situation where the past of "to blow" is "blew", but of "to glow" is "glowed"? And don't say "flew" if you mean "it flowed". The poem Lovers, by Phoebe Cary has many examples of these. How did these differences originate? Did "blow" and "glow" come from etymologically distinct b...

There is language inertia from "online" as well. You can say that again. The only answer I've scored points for, an impossibly inoffensive and arguably hilarious example of how Sheila might be in Facebook, has been censored by English StackExchange. WTF lol. I would ask why, but then if the ...

Love. apparently 30 character minimum for answers, so I'll add a quote for filler. Love is whatever you can still betray. - John le Carre

Some words end in th (length, width), and others end in ht (height, fight, tonight, caught). I sometimes have difficulties in spelling such words because I don't know which ending to choose. Is there any rule or pattern (even localized) in choosing one or the other?

The first thing to note is that the two sets of words that you mentioned end with different sounds. The ones ending in th all have the [θ] sound, which is formed by putting the tip of the tongue between the front teeth and blowing. The ones ending in ht all have the [t] sound (or some allophonic ...

My English textbook use 'i:', and I find some online dictionaries use 'ē'. Where can I find information about this phonics system?

Is this grammatically correct? You see in front of you a dirt block, above which a stone block. If not how should it be fixed?