It struck me today what would be the word for confused people. One of my friends is always confused in her daily life, she just can't decide what to do. If I call her, saying "you're a confused person" then it sounds more general. I am just wondering is there any single word for these kind of peo...

I've been receiving emails at work inquiring about registering our key fobs. This is slightly disturbing to me as I've always called it a key thob. An internet search for thob tells me I really mean fob, but if I force it to search for thob instead, it finds plenty of results (1.1 million for tho...

As discussed above, this is clearly an error. However, it is an interesting error, which is driven by several different things: The word fob is very rare, and is essentially unused outside of this expression and the idiomatic verb to fob off. Therefore it's not surprising that some people mis-a...

Why don't Americans write devor instead of devour to be consistent with the pervasiveness of using variations such as color and armor?

I am trying to write a recommendation letter. The following two sentences sound quite awkward. Is it correct? I mean what I am doing describing all the events on the past tense and on that base I am implying some attribute of the present (this is the only sentence in present tense). He frequ...

Non-native speakers often get confused about what the tenses in English mean. With input from some of the folk here I've put together a diagram that I hope will provide some clarity on the matter. I offer it as the first answer to this question. Consider it a living document. Input is welcome, ...

Consider rephrasing as follows: He frequently interacted with teachers and colleagues on the subject and he demonstrated insight on what he studied. He also frequently demonstrated excellent communication skills. Using the word demonstrated (or synonyms of the word) allows the reader to mak...