What is Ironic?

This is Alanis Morissette.

And in 1995, she wrote a song called 'Ironic'

The word ‘ironic’ means something has happened in the exact opposite way than what is expected. Things that are ironic are, say, a fire station being burnt to the ground, or a Nazi war criminal discovering the joys of kosher food, or Simon Cowell financing an experimental music project with Patti Smith. These things are ironic because it’s the opposite of what you would expect, this is not the same thing as when something happens that is just inconvenient or crappy.

This is different to when something happens that sucks a bit. Take, for example, every single line of Alanis Morissette’s 1995 song, ‘Ironic’.

Morissette sings that irony is ‘like rain on your wedding day’ or ‘it’s a free ride, once you’ve already paid’ or ‘it’s the good advice that you just didn’t take’ These things are not in any way ironic – they just suck, or were caused by the individual’s own stupidity.

The Jon Stewart Show once aired a clip of George Bush from back in 2000, having a discussion with a woman about baloney sandwiches. For some reason that isn’t entirely clear, they are talking about the fact that Bush says he eats baloney sandwiches everyday. When the woman asks him ‘don’t you find that ironic? Bush guffaws, then responds to the woman ‘I find you ironic!’ then smirks at his own joke and shoves the rest of the baloney sandwich that he was eating at the time into his mouth.

Clearly from this comment, we see that George Bush thinks that the word ‘ironic’ is a sort of insult, to be used along the same lines of ‘you suck!’ or ‘your mother!’.

The same goes for the use of the word ‘literally.’ The definition of ‘literally’ is when something actually happened. For example, you can’t say ‘I literally fell of my chair laughing’, unless you actually did do this. You can’t say ‘I’m literally roasting’ to describe heat exhaustion, unless you are being attacked with a flame-thrower. You can’t say ‘I was literally crawling up the walls’ unless you are actually Spiderman.

A great example of this kind of language misuse is the manufacturer of a toy called ‘Timmy the Energy Bear’ which comes with the description ‘Timmy is a delightful cuddly, soft toy who is literally alive!’

On the up-side, these kind of slip-ups can be funny, and good for a lol or two. The only time it starts to get uncomfortable is when that particular person happened to be the leader of western world for eight years.

Holy Shit: When a sentence doesn't need to start with a capital

Throughout history, many famous artists have painted over their previous work to make a whole new painting. This makes sense, since canvases were, and are still, pretty expensive, and as MC Grammar knows all too well, sometimes you'll be working day and night on a piece of art – in my case, this voluminous blog – and it will be only halfway through that you'll realise that what you're doing is shit.

For example, this is a very beautiful portrait painted Frida Kahlo in the 1930s.

 But what most people don't know is that X-ray images have shown that Kahlo was originally painting this:

Which IS good, but I'm sure you'll agree, isn't as good as what she ended up with. And the painting by Botticelli, which is generally known to look like this:

Is in fact painted over an earlier draft that looks like this:

And just like these examples, it has been recently discovered that a lost Leonardo da Vinci painting has been hiding behind a fresco at Florence’s town hall.

The painting, which is titled ‘The Battle of Anghiari’, is believed to have been hidden for the last five centuries. In 1504, da Vinci worked in the Hall of Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio and managed to complete only the centrepiece of his work. After 1555, the palace room undertook renovations, and the painting was covered by other stuff, which we now realise is a piece of total crap.

Here's a bit of the uncovered painting:

Anyway, here's where shit gets seriously crazy. When Leonardo da Vinci makes it to the papers. When you start a sentence with 'da Vinci', you don't have to start the sentence with a capital letter. Here's an example.

In this case, because 'da Vinci' is a surname that starts with a lower case letter, not an uppercase letter. You can't just make it an uppercase letter because you're starting a new sentence - in this case the fact that da Vinci's name starts with a lowercase letter overrides the fact that sentences are meant to start with an uppercase letter.

I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that this is some crazy shit. But don't be too frightened by this, just let this fact wash over you like a big wave. After all, da Vinci created some pretty dope stuff, like this business:

Rick Santorum's greatest fear: When possessive and plural apostrophes collide

This is Rick Santorum.

Rick Santorum is a republican politician who is deeply concerned for his country.

You see, Rick is worried about the gays. He is at pains for other people to see that if we let gays marry, everything will go totally shit.

For example, just think about this: what if two gay people marry (each other), OK fine, but then what if they become some sort of power couple who have a number of valuable assets? Assets, if you're following me, that HETEROSEXUAL people could have owned! What if they buy a holiday house, then a gay couple will have not one, but two houses. Those are TWO houses that one hetero couple could have owned. Nuff said!

So in this case, if you wanted to talk about the two houses of a gay couple, would you say 'Jane and Mary's Houses, or would you say Jane's and Mary's Houses?'

It's complicated, because it's like this: there's only one of Mary and Jane, but they have more than one house (until Rick Santorum becomes president, then they will just live in a mental institution for wayward girls).

When it comes to using pronouns, the rule is that the one that would stand in isolation is the correct one, and while this situation doesn't deal with pronouns, you should follow this rule when you are forced to say something awkward, and as Rick Santorum is at pains to emphasise, like Jane's and Mary's Houses.

What is the difference between i.e. and e.g.?

The term i.e. tends to come up a lot in writing, but what does it actually mean? And why is it different from e.g?

I.e. is an abbreviation for the Latin term 'id est', which means 'that is' or 'in other words'. So you use i.e. when you want to clarify things a little bit further. For example:

The key issue at hand, i.e. who will rid of all this raw sewerage, really needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Things got a lot worse after that, i.e everybody died.

E.g. on the other hand, is short for 'exampli gratia', which means 'for example'. As you can see, e.g. wouldn't work in the two examples we looked at above, because the i.e.'s in question are not examples of something, they are the key clarifying aspect of the sentence.

So if you want to say something like 'a number of vegetables, for example, carrots, celery, snow peas and beets, appear to have come to life', you could also say 'a number of vegetables, e.g. carrots, celery, snow peas and beets, appear to have come to life.'

or, A lot of the things that people need, e.g. clean water, shelter, and food, are inaccessible since the floods.

And what is the deal with the full stops that come out of nowhere?  Yes, as you might have noticed both i.e. and e.g. have awkward full stops after them. But the truth is, those full stops are there because both i.e. and e.g. are abbreviations.

While we think about these differences, let's look at this picture of an actor playing Mark Antony, a famous Latin speaker, pictured here trying to decide who he's going to kill next.

Mmmm. Well, there are a number of people who might just stand in the way of me gaining absolute power, and there are a number of ways I could kill them, e.g. push them over a cliff, poison them, or even send an army to snuff them out.

MC Grammar's own grammar and spelling mistakes, part 2

As we all know, when you run a grammar blog, you run the risk of making your own grammar and spelling mistakes as every turn.

And indeed, the saying 'don't throw stones in a glass house' has proved to be particularly significant for me, because my house is actually made of glass. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it: I guess that I liked how much sunlight the house got. But in reality, living in a glass house is really difficult. Anyone can look in at any time, which makes stepping out of the shower an arrestable offence. In fact, having a shower at all is an arrestable offence, since that has glass walls too.

And just like my house made of glass, this blog is also made of glass, and mistakes that I make in it are like stones. But as I have said before, we all make mistakes in our spelling and grammar, even MC Grammar. Enjoy!

In 'Pronounciation that could get you killed' I wrote 'ain't so such word as irregardless' and, I didn't put a full stop at the end of the first sentence of this post.

In 'Rainbow Grammar Family', I spelled 'spelling' with two l's. Ironic, considering the content of that post!

In 'whom vs who', I wrote 'a online viral story'. How foolish, as I should have used an 'an'.

In 'Indecent Preposition', I placed a hyphen where there should have been an en-dash when I wrote 'Hey - I didn't know they knew each other!' and, I wrote 'They live in same apartment block' instead of 'they live in the same apartment block'.

In 'Mission: To pause for half a second', I wrote 'again, this move seemed to make absolutely no sense', instead of 'this movie seemed to make absolutely no sense'.

And you have to ask yourself, what other outlandish mistakes have I made without even realising?

That's where you come in. These mistakes cannot be brought to light unless avid readers like yourselves step forward to take out the trash. Which, incidentally, I take out in a glass trash can.

Mission: To pause for half a second.

At the end of last year, the fourth Mission: Impossible film came out.

I remember seeing the first Mission: Impossible film. I was just a slip of a thing, and me and my friends had a sleep over and watched it. But no matter how hard I tried, I had no fucking idea what was going on. As far as I could tell, some people the main guy cared about were killed, and he somehow knew who was to blame, so he packed a bag, made some phone calls from the airport, and killed everybody. There was a very confusing sequence where he abseiled from the roof in order to steal something, but really, that's all I could work out.

Four years later, the second Mission: Impossible film came out, and I went to the movies on a date. Again, this move seemed to make absolutely no sense. It had something to do with a vial of disease, a woman who was good at driving a car, and Tom Cruise also enjoyed abseiling in that film too, but mostly just for leisure in the same way that some people enjoy taking a nap in the middle of the day, or having a kit kat in the middle of the afternoon.

When the third film came out, and I found out about it, I exclaimed loudly: 'no fucking way am I going to see that movie. The last two didn't make sense, and I've got too much on my plate, and no one on God's green earth can trick me into seeing it.'

And I was right. Now, with the fourth film on it's way, I still feel happy with my realisation that the Mission: Impossible films make absolutely no sense.

But there is one thing about the Mission: Impossible films that keeps me awake at night, and that it the mysterious colon that lives between the words 'mission' and 'impossible'.

The colon looks like this

Although it resembles the semi-colon, the colon is used for telling the reader that what follows in a sentence will prove, clarify, explain, or simply list items in relation to what is referred to before.

The verdict was in: The jury took their places with resolved faces.

There could be no mistaking it: It was the same gnome she had thrown out the week before.

She checked the contents of her bag again: Lipstick, banana, diary, passport, pick axe, chestnuts and bleach.

Another useful way to think of the colon is to regard it as a brief pause – it's a little longer than a comma or a dash, and can be used to lend importance to what is about to follow it.

So, considering all this, having a colon in the middle of 'mission' and 'impossible' is like saying 'this mission is totally impossible'. The 'impossible' part is the clarifying part, explaining exactly what short of mission we're dealing with here. A damn impossible one.

'Lucky no-one put a CCTV camera in here, or this would look totally stupid.'

And now, a post about whether you can use 'and' at the start of a sentence.

When I was at school, Our Sacred Lady of the Mean Streets and Correct Grammar, teachers told me that if I used ‘and’ at the start of a sentence, that it was the worst thing I could ever do. This was also the way they felt about using ‘because’ at the start of a sentence.

This was because these words are conjunctions.A conjunction is a word that connects two other words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. For some reason, many teachers used to think that it was a bit unclassy to start a sentence like this, maybe because it makes a sentence look incomplete.

In times like this, I like to turn to The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage book, which says

‘There is a persistent belief that it is improper to begin a sentence with 'and', but this prohibition has been cheerfully ignored by standard authors from Anglo-Saxon times onwards’

Snap, New Fowler’s Modern English. There is pretty much no reason why you can’t use ‘and’ at the start of a sentence. In fact, almost all of the best writers do this whenever they feel like it. Take J.M Coetzee for example:

‘In his youth Dostoevsky had been attracted to utopian socialism of the Fourietrist variety. But four years in a prison camp in Siberia shook his faith.’

Here, you can see that far from being weird and wrong, the conjunction ‘and’ has been a helpful sentence opener.

For any teachers reading this, hey, I know you were just trying to do the right thing. But for all you up-and-coming teachers whose dream it is to create the grammar superstars of tomorrow, just remember that not all clauses have to be complete – a sentence can be dependant on another clause in order to make sense.

To see us out, let’s appreciate this excellent writing from Daphne Du Maurier, as her heroine, an unnamed woman, wanders through the ruins of her old home.

‘And there were other trees as well, trees that I did not recognise, squat oaks and tortured elms that straggled cheek by jowl with the beeches, and had thrust themselves out of the quiet earth, along with monster shrubs and plants, none of which I remembered.’

Creepy, conjunction-begun stuff!

Capitalisation for titles

As you know, we have once before jumped into the crystal clear waters of how to use capital letters.

But my fans have told me that they are hungry for more information. They have contacted me via twitter, facebook, gmail chat and telegram, begging me to give them more information about how to use capital letters in the right way.

And certainly, capital letters are confusing, not least when you are writing the title of something, such as a memoir you have just written about your life, or a thesis on the mating patterns of salmon, or even a power ballard. Questions you might find yourself asking are "Should my power ballard be written 'The Love Exchange Only Hands Out Monopoly Money', or 'The love exchange only hands out monopoly money', OR should only some of those words be in capitalised?"

Let me explain.

When you are writing titles, some words need to be capitalised, and others don't need to be. The ones that do need to be capitalised are:

•  The first and last words of the title; or
• All nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives

The words that should not be capitalised, unless they are the first or last word, are:

• articles (a, an, the) 
• conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet) 
• short adpositions (3 and less letters long): at, by, for, in, of, off, on, out, to, up
• some Latin abbreviations (most common only): c./ca./cca. (circa), et al. (et alii), etc. (et cetera), e.g. (exempli gratia), i.e. (id est), lb. (libra), vs. (versus). 
• medium adpositions (4 letters long): down, from, into, like, near, onto, over, than, with, upon.

For example

That Tall Man, He Runs Fast!

All these words fall into the first category of words that should be capitalised. On the other hand, a title like:

Who's That Man over there?

Would not need to be all capitals because the words in blue are prepositions, which are not to be capitalised.

Some other examples:

Believing the Lie (i.e.first word/article/last word)

Diary of a Whimpy Kid (i.e. first word/short adposition/article/adjective/last word)  

It Was Just a Bit of Fun (i.e first word/verb/adjective/article/noun/adposition/last word)

These Titles Seem to Be Getting Longer and Longer (first word/noun/verb/adposition/verb/verb/adjective/coordinating conjunction/adjective)

But HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE for a minute. You might have noticed that like some sort of hypocritical monstrous dictator of some sort, MC Grammar himself does not follow these rules in his own blog posts. What the fuck? Well, this is where capitalisation for titles gets hazy, because the rules for blog titles are still hazy. For example, the very fine Julie Burchill, a very long-established journalist, only capitalises the first word of her titles, and any proper nouns that come up, whereas the very funny Cody Johnston tends to capitalise everything except coordinating conjunctions. Both are highly respectable journalists and writers, both are well-school in the fine arts of grammar. So who to follow? Well, the best bet is to follow the rules I have set up here, but just remember that the internet is a changing beast, and what rules arise for capitalisations, we simply don't know yet.

To see us out, let's sit back, relax, and listen to the very excellent Capital Letters, who never mess up their capitalisations of titles, and hope that someday you can be like them.

Focussed vs Focused

As you know, we have already battled with the rules of when to use different spellings for the same words, and it has been no small task.

But the thing you have to understand that you can never really win the battle with words – you can only hold them back for long enough to crouch down in your trench and write a letter to your loved ones, telling them how much you miss the farm, and that you don't know when you'll be home.

Some words have two different spellings in the same country, and can be used interchangeably. These can hurt your head.

A prime offender of this is the word focussed. In US spelling, this word is spelt focused. In UK and Australian English, it's spelt focussed. But it's not really as straight-cut as that, because Australian English can't make it's mind up which one to use.

According to The Style Guide, which is the official guide to all the spellings in Australia, you should use focussed. But in the majority of publications, such as the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, the spelling focused is used instead. And you know when the Sydney Morning Herald is involved, shit is serious.

I know what you're thinking: You thinking 'what the fuck?! Why can't they just decide on one spelling!?' Well, you make a good point, but you're just a foot soldier on the grammar battlefield, and the question of focused and focussed is an interesting example of Australian spelling being an English ho, incorporating both UK and US spellings without so much as blushing.

The bottom line is that when you are in Australia, you have the option to use both spellings, as long as you are consistent. You can't just use focussed and focused in the same document - you need to stick with one, or you'll look like you've gone insane with choice.

Who vs whom Part 2 – grammar suffers a bulletwound in the war-torn battlefield of hurt feelings

As you know, MC Grammar doesn't get upset very often. The only people that I hate are Robert Mugabe and all manufacturers of corn syrup. But lately, there has been something else that has been getting my goat – what is up with people using archaic language in an argument, just because they think that it makes them look smart and scares their opponents?

This leads us to the story of GASP Jeans, a clothes store that became part of an online viral story last month because of emails that were exchanged between a customer, Keara O'Neill, and a customer service-type person, Matthew Chidgey

From Keara O'Neill, the shopper:

 I had the privilege of shopping at your brand new Chapel St store on Saturday 24th September with my three bridesmaids in tow. On the hunt for bridesmaids dresses and a hens dress for myself we walked into the store and were automatically pounced on by a male staff member, I understand that this is protocol for many retail outlets and ours is no different.

The staff member was initially funny and extremely helpful with sizes etc. I chose a bright pink dress to try on but was unable to do the zip up so asked for the size up, when I eventually got the correct size and came out of the change room I was unable to discuss the likes or dislikes of the dress with my bridesmaids as the sales assistant kept saying “you should just get it”, when I told him I would think about it, he pulled me aside and whispered “Is it the price your worried about”. By now I was extremely frustrated, and again told him I’d think about it, I walked back into the change room and closed the door behind me, only to have it pushed open with the sales assistant half standing in my change room, again whispering “I think you should just get it”, when I gave him attitude and said rudely, “I already told you I would think about it”, he then replied, “With your figure I really think you should buy it”.

I’m not sure exactly what he meant by that, but considering the attitude used to deliver such a statement I can only imagine that it was an immature dig in relation to my healthy size 12 frame. I got changed in a hurry and walked right out of the change rooms and out of the store, I could hear the sales assistant yelling out to me, but I just ignored him and continued to leave, assuming my bridesmaids would follow. After waiting down the road for my bridesmaids to come out of the store I was told by one of them that the sales assistant yelled out “Have fun finding something at Supre”, when one of them approached him in regards to his comments, he replied “I knew you girls were a joke the minute you walked in”. When my bridesmaids walked out of the store another two customers walked out with them, they too could not believe the immaturity of the sales assistant.

I have worked in retail for 12 years and have come across an array of customer complaints over the years, none of which come even close to what I encountered on Saturday at your store, I wish I was exaggerating but unfortunately for your company this person actually exists and is working in one of your stores. I am pretty laid back and was quite happy just leaving your store, it was my bridesmaids who felt the need to say something to him…I dread to think how many customers he has not only offended but how many customers have left your store due to the pressure placed on getting the sale, and then to be harassed when that sale hasn’t taken place.

Ring me, don’t ring, not fussed…I’m just one retailer notifying another of an extremely inappropriate sales assistant.

Keara O'Neil

And here's the response by GASP area manager Matthew Chidgey:

Dear Keara O’Neil,

Having now had the privilege of having both version of events, I am now in a position to respond to your complaint.

From the very outset, one thing that you should be mindful of is; Our product offerings are very, very carefully selected, so to ensure that we do not appeal to a broad customer base. This is something which is always at the forefront of our minds when undertaking buying duties.

The reason for this is to ensure that we only carry products which appeal to a very fashion forward consumer. This by default means that the customer whom is acclimatised to buying from “clothing for the masses” type retailers, is almost frightened by our range, sometimes we have found that this type of customer, almost finds our dresses funny, and on occasion noted comments such as 'it looks like a dead flamingo'. When we receive comments like this, we like to give ourselves and our buyers, a big pat on the back, because we know we are doing our job right, and modus operandi is being upheld.

Our range is worn by A list celebrities to the likes of Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Katy Perry to name only a few. Now, as one might appreciate, the style counsel for these types of celebrities are not ones to pick “run of the mill” type clothing, and they do so on the basis to ensure that the styles are cutting edge, and only worn by a select few. Similarly these items are priced such that they remain inaccessible to the undesirable.

Insofar as our employee goes; Similar to our product offerings, our employees are selected with a similar approach. Chris whom served you is a qualified stylist whom has a sixth sense for fashion, and Chris’s only problem is that he is too good at what he does, and as I am sure you are aware, people whom are talented, generally do not tolerate having their time wasted, which is the reason you were provoked to leave the store.

Whilst I concede that you work for chain retailer, unfortunately that does not make us like for like. It is probably fair to assume, a lot of what I have said in this email, either doesn’t make sense to you, or you totally disagree with it all, which is what I would expect (unless of course I have you totally wrong – which I doubt).

Let me guess, you would never, ever hire Chris in the course of your duty, would you? This is the very reason, why your comment “from one retailer to another” is so disproportionate, it’s almost as though we are in a totally different industries. Chris is a retail superstar, who possess unparalleled ability, and I am sorry you feel upset by him, but he knew you were not going to buy anything before you even left your house.

So if you would like to do us any favours, please do not waste our retail staff’s time, because as you have already seen, they will not tolerate it. I am sure there are plenty of shops that appease your taste, so I respectfully ask that you side step our store during future window shopping expeditions.

Thank you for your enquiry.

The best part of this email is the sign off, 'thank you for your inquiry' That's the sting the tail of this already very poisonous and aggressive scorpion's tale.

Let's have a look at Mr Chidgey's use of the pronoun, 'whom'.

...the customer whom is acclimatised to buying from “clothing for the masses” type retailers, is almost frightened by our range...

Chris whom served you is a qualified stylist whom has a sixth sense for fashion...

...people whom are talented, generally do not tolerate having their time wasted...

Matthew Chidgey! Why are you so fashion forward, and yet so grammar stationary! Why can't it be both! Why can't your sixth sense for fashion also come with a first sense for grammar correctness? You wordlessly promise so much with your fine, coiffed hair, your sharp, micro-fibre suit, but beyond your gilded exterior you are full of not just archaic language, but also plainly incorrect grammar.

As we have learnt before, traditionally who was used to refer to refer to the subject of a sentence or clause. For example:

I know it was you who stepped on my fish

Whom was used when referring to the object of a clause. For example:

To whom were you speaking just then?

However, the use of whom is now mostly archaic. This means that it has fallen out of use so much that it's no longer the right way to say something, and in most cases where you would have said 'whom' fifty years ago, it is now correct to say 'who'.

The only time you really need to use 'whom' when it comes after a preposition in more formal language. For example,

To whom it may concern

In all other situations, you can use 'who'.

So, unfortunately for Matthew Chidgey, he has let himself – and us – down on two fronts. He has used whom even though it is archaic, and in the places where he has used it, he's not even using it to refer to the object of a sentence. WTF, Matthew Chidgey!

Matthew Chidgey, please try to be like fisherman Julian Chidgey, who has taken life by the horns and caught this huge fish.

To lol or not to lol?

David Mitchell is someone who loves grammar. Every day he fights for a better understanding of grammar, and his passions also include the honesty of politicians and the rules of queuing.

So it's safe to say that David Mitchell is a kind of well-rounded soldier for goodness. Here, David talks about the abbreviation lol, and has some very interesting points about how awesome it really is.

10 mispronunciations that could get you killed

This is the cast of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.



They know about heinous. This is because they deal with heinous sex crimes every day of their damn working lives. In fact, they eat a bowl of heinous first thing in the morning. When they get to their desks, the first thing they do is update their status on facebook and twitter to 'very heinous', and after work, they go to the gym for a variety of workouts, such as 'heinous pump', 'cross-heinous' and 'advanced heinousness'.

And because they deal with heinousness in every facet of their day-to-day lives, they also know how to pronounce the word heinous – you would if you had to deal with it every damn day of your life.  But what about you, who isn't confronted with the same amount of heinousness every day of your life? How will you cope when something heinous comes along? And who knows how a psychopathic murderer will react when they hear you say 'heinous' wrong?

And it's for this exact reason that you need to know these 10 frequently mispronounced words – so you are safe from all forms of heinousness in the future.

Here are 10 frequently mispronounced words:

Heinous – HAY-nus, not heen-us. Hear it here.

Often – you do not pronounce the 't' in often. Hear it here.

Exacerbate – the 'c' in exacerbate is soft, so it is ig-ZAS-ur-bayt, not ig-ZAK-ur-bayt. Hear it here.

Interpret – in-ter-PRET, not in-ter-PRE-TATE. Hear it here

Miniature – This word has four syllables. Say min-I-A-ture, not min-A-ture. Hear it here.

Preventive –This word has three syllables, not four. Pre-ven-tive, not pre-ven-TA-tive. Hear it here.

Regardless – This word has three syllables. Ain't no such word as 'irregardless'.

Asterisk – Notice the second S. Say as-ter-isk, not as-ter-ik. Hear it here.

Dilate – This word has two syllables, not three. Say di-late, not di-A-late. Hear it here.

Etcetera – Say et-cet-era, not ex-cet-era. Hear it here. 

Armed with this knowledge, you can go about your business, never having to be afraid that you will suddenly utter a mispronunciation without realising. The streets might not be any safer, but at least your pronunciation is.

That vs which

During a very enjoyable afternoon of internet browsing, I image-googled 'that vs which', and this image came up:

Mysterious.

So, when do you use that, and when do you use which?

The easiest way to remember how to use these two words correctly is to remember that you use that for a restrictive clause, and which for everything else.

A restrictive clause is a clause that limits what is being talked about. For example:

Dogs that bark get kidnapped around here.

In these clauses, you can't just leave out the bit about barking, because the kind of dogs we are talking about is restricted to dogs that bark.

However, if you say:

Dogs, which bark, get kidnapped around here

It means that it is not just dogs that bark that get kidnapped, but pretty much any dog that gets kidnapped. The barking bit is just extra information that might give you when they are overly interested in details.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Here's the situation: the sentence Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo is a grammatically correct sentence that has a meaning.

The sentence uses three different meanings of 'buffalo'.

1. the city of Buffalo, New York, United States

2. the noun buffalo as in the animal; and

3. the verb 'buffalo' meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.

This means that the sentence if split up like this:

Marking each 'buffalo' with its use as shown above gives:

Buffalo(1) buffalo(2) Buffalo(1) buffalo(2) buffalo(3) buffalo(3) Buffalo(1) buffalo(2)

So that the meaning of the sentence is:

Bison from Buffalo, New York, who are intimidated by other bison in their community, also happen to intimidate other bison.

If this is still not making a lot of sense, think of it like this: If you replaced the verb 'buffalo' with 'intimidate', and the noun 'buffalo' with the word 'people', the sentence would read:

Buffalo people that Buffalo people intimidate also intimidate people.

It's clear that this is some crazy shit. It's an example of how homonyms can be used.

Homonyms are words that have the same spellings and pronunciations, but different meanings. Other examples of homonyms are:

Bass (e.g. I enjoy bass fishing and play the bass guitar)  
   
Lead  (e.g. the group's lead singer had made some enemies, and carried a lead pipe for protection.)

The amazing thing about this crazy homonym sentence is that is a completely valid sentence in the form that you see it in  – it doesn't really even need punctuation, unless you are a bit of a comma-lover.

 'I'm sorry, were you talking to me, or were you referring to the city of Buffalo. Or perhaps you were referring to the colloquial term 'buffalo', meaning 'to bully'? It's all so confusing! How did we even get this far as a species?'

Bear in mind – the correct spelling of a phrase, or a terrifying psychotic episode?

A lot of words have more than one meaning. Sometimes, it's as though these words are taunting us like potholes in the roads of our happiness, causing us to find ourselves helplessly stuck in a hole of misunderstanding. The double meaning of bear is an excellent example of these terrible, confusing potholes, not least when it is used in the context of the term 'bear in mind'.

You, like many other sexy and intelligent people, have probably said to yourself more than once, 'hang on, it can't be 'bear' in mind because 'bear' is an animal. It must be the other word that sounds a bit like bear, which is 'bare' in mind. Yes it must be 'bare in mind', as a bear in mind would be a terrifying psychotic episode brought on by a hereditary or lifestyle influence. But before we suffer in the darkness any longer, let's separate the lies from the truth here.

The word bear has two meanings:

1. A large, furry animal that can kill you

2. To carry, e.g. ' They came bearing gifts'

And so, the phrase 'bear in mind' refers to the second meaning of bear, as in 'carry this thought in your mind'.

And so, another grammar pothole has been filled in, making your journey to grammar nirvana smooth and joyous.

Breaking news: MC Grammar reveals his real name

Friends, lovers, avid followers and solicitors of sexual favours. For years I have hidden behind my street name, MC Grammar, and you have patiently accepted this and referred to me by this name, even though in your heart of hearts you must have known that that was not the name that my smart and bold mama gave me.

So now it's time to reveal to you that my real name is James Prometheus Wiki III. The reason I want to reveal this to you is because that's what friends do when they have known each other for a while, and I trust you with this information.

Now, a few years ago I discovered that I had a real talent for helping people and giving them helpful life advice. Around the same time, I was becoming very savvy at the internet. I had added a number of helpful facts onto internet and I decided that it would be great if I had my own internet website that gave people facts. I commenced going about buying a domain name, and I thought it would be fantastic if I created a website that was like consulting an encyclopedia in real life! Therefore, I tried to buy a domain site called ‘wiki-pedia’. Imagine my shock when I discovered that the domain site ‘wikipedia.com’ had already been bought. I went away to try and deal with my anger, and after some self-reflection, I decided that my helpful site would be just as useful if I called it ‘Wiki-How’. To my frustration and rage, wikihow.com had also already been purchased.

Following this, I developed incontinence for a while. It was a terrible time, but I realised after a while that it was just psychological. I decided to create a website for people who had gone through the same struggle with their bladders, but then, to my utter devastation,  I discovered that the domain site ‘wikileaks.com’ had also been bought. Why was it that the world was always one step ahead of me? Why was it that every time I had a vision of how I could change the world, someone else had already seen it, and made it their own?

Then something wonderful occurred to me. I realised that it wasn't important what I called my helpful website, as long as I was helping people with their problems.

With renewed zeal, I embarked on a very happy life of explaining grammar, and let me tell you, I have never looked back.
And with all of this cleared up, let's move on to the wonderful world of non-countable nouns.

Non-countable nouns, also known as uncountable nouns or mass nouns, are things that can't be divided into separate elements. In other words, they can't be 'counted'.

For example, instead of saying a milk, you should say a glass of milk, because even if you literally owned all the milk in the world, you still couldn't have a  milk. That would be like having a dirt, or a pollen.

Examples of non-countable verbs are:
advice, information, news

furniture, luggage

rice, sugar, butter, water

electricity, gas,

money, currency

And if you don't have the specific words to describe the noun you are talking about, you can always just use some, any, little and much with non-countable nouns:I've got some money.

Have you got any rice?

I haven't got much advice for you

I've got a little money.

These are also known as quantifying adjectives, because they indicate amounts. Some other ways you can refer to a non-countable verb are:

A piece of news

A bottle of water

A grain of rice


We have now made some considerable progress in the world of non-countable nouns, which I am very happy about. I realise now that my role is to help with grammar, not to launch a multi-million dollar general help site that advices people on all manner of things. But to reminisce about that youthful dream I once had, let's appreciate these fun and cool girls as they help the world with its kissing.

Definitely a post you should read

I feel shame. It's the kind of shame that you know you should have, and you attend years of cognitive therapy to see how irrational your shame is, but when you're lying in your four-poster bed in the dark, you can't help but feel like you're just a really a bad person.

You see, despite all my wonderful qualities, it is pretty often that I misspell the word definitely.

Yes, even me, who loves grammar so much that my children are named 'Suffix', 'Elipsis' and 'Dash' sometimes falters when I am called upon to remember whether you spell definitely or definitley.

The short story is it's definitely. You might think that that's confusing, because it's not like you say definit-elly, but you see, the e in definitely is silent. In this case, definite is the main part of the word, while -ly is the suffix.

A suffix is a group of letters that are at the end of a word to make a new word. The most common example of a suffix is the s that is added to the end of things, like cats, to indicate that something is plural.

Other examples of suffixes include:

Suffix    Original Word   Suffixed Word

en          Eat                      Eaten

ing         Sleep                  Sleeping

al           accident             accidental

able         tax                       taxable

ly           brother                brotherly

ful           forget                  forgetful

ly           helpful                   helpfully


We have now learnt not only about prefixes but also suffixes, so to top all this off, let's listen to this rap that puts it all together:
 

An internet blog post about tautology

This is MC Grammar's sister, Bee-Rock.

Bee-Rock is a dancer. She loves hip-hop, jazz, contemporary and ballroom, and any other style of dance you can think of. But she has a problem. Every now and again, somebody utters the phrase 'I saw you dancing that dance last week.'

This phrase is what's known as a tautology. This makes Bee-Rock very annoyed. You see, Bee-Rock has no time for tautology. Sometimes it gets so bad that the only place she feels safe is on the dancefloor. She flees back to it and dances furiously, mascara-stained tears streaming down her face. 'No der I was '"dancing" a "dance"' she screams against the din of music to no one in particular. 'How else you do a dance?'

Tautology is when you say the same thing twice in different words. For example, the tiny little man is a tautology because it's unnecessary to say both 'tiny' and 'little'. Other examples of this are:

I'm going to raze this house to the ground.

When you threaten to raze something, it's pretty much assumed that you're going to raze it all the way to the ground.

The downstairs basement

Basements are always downstairs

One of the most common tautologies is terms like a free gift. This offender tends to come up in many varieties, such as:

A gift of wine on the house

The elephant was donated as a gift

Gifts and donations are always free, so this is where the tautology part comes in.

So do the right thing and try not to use tautologies – as Bee-Rock always says, the time you waste saying unnecessary things is time your could have spent dancing.

Sudden Adjectives: The words that action movies can't do without

MC Grammar loves action movies. All those explosions, high speed car chases, bombs, and even though walking away slowly from an explosion that is right behind you in real life would just be a sign that had been traumatised by violence, there's nothing quite like it when you're watching it in an action movie.

And one of the things I love the most about action movies is their names, like Dragon Eyes, Sudden Death, Street Fighter, Hard Target, Double Target, and Knockaround Guys. All these titles have something in common – they all have adjectives in them.

There's nothing I love more than an adjective-noun action move. When you see one of the these, you know that you're going to get first-class action on your wide-screen TV, and almost definitely the martial art stylings of Jean-Claude Van Damme will be in it.

 The role of adjectives is to give more information about the thing you are talking about. The most common form of an adjective is the attributive adjective. There are difference kinds of adjectives. There are attributive adjectives, meaning that it tells us more about the the main noun or object in a sentence:

It was an interesting animal

An adjective can be predicative, meaning it can be the predicate in a sentence:

This wig is glossy

And adjective can be post-positive, which means that it appears after the noun, like:

There was food aplenty, but it was of the worst kind imaginable

Or an adjective can be substantive, which is when an adjective is used like a noun:

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

A good rule to follow is to avoid using too many adjectives in a sentence. For example, look at this passage from 'New Moon', by Stephanie Meyer:

I woke with a start  – my eyelids popping open wide  – and gasped. Dull, grey light, the familiar light of an overcast morning, took the place of the blinding sun in my dream.

Woah, Stephanie Meyer, slow down there! There's a shitload of adjectives in your story and it's making your story look weird!  

Also, you run the risk of tautology when you use too many adjectives. For example:

The wide open canyon.

Obviously a wide canyon is going to be open.

I was in close proximity to the lion.

All proximity is close.

Good God – where would we be without adjectives! Imagine if some of the greatest movies didn't have adjectives to emphasise their awesomeness? We would have action movies with names like 'Death that is going to happen now', 'More Than One Target' and 'Target that I keep missing'. As this would not do justice to the man that inspires all these movies, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Let's pay homage to him now.

Hyphen use and other sex tips

As you probably know, MC Grammar is as much into physical love as he is into lingual love.

And when it comes to the world of punctuation, there's no sign that imitates the act of physical love more than the hyphen, which helps bring words together as close as they can be, whilst still retaining their individuality.

Hyphens are used to combine words. They are used for:

• prefixes, such as 'pre' (e.g. pre-paid)
• doubled-up vowels, (e.g. de-emphasised)
• clarifying meaning (e.g. to distinguish them from established words, such as post-war)

The general rule is that you should only use hyphens in the case where there may be more than one way that your sentence could be interpreted. For example, in the sentence

I was laid off

You don't need to bother using a hyphen, because there's no other way that 'laid off' could be interpreted. But you might think about using a hyphen in this sentence:

When I got laid off my face had an outbreak of acne

Here, 'laid off' could mixed up with the term 'off my face' so to make it clear what part of the sentence 'off' belongs to, and things get confusing, so it would help to use a hyphen and say 'laid-off' instead.

When I got laid-off my face had an outbreak of acne

If you're confused about where the hyphen is on your computer, it is on the bottom row here. Try it out for maximum hyphen fun!