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April
The April's in her eyes; it is love's spring
And these the showers to bring it on.
Antony, in Antony and Cleopatra, III. ii. 43-4
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Holiday for Some...Curse for Others...Fun for All
ProofreadNOW.com, Inc. has arranged, through our two very generous U.S. senators, for the U.S. Treasury to stimulate today's winners with $1 million each. The catch is that you must print the test, circle your answers, send it to Senators Kerry and Kennedy, and demand your fat stimulus check. The envelope must be postmarked TODAY. Take your best shot!
1. thimblerig: (a) chiefly Scottish: a witch's trick: spell; (b) a swindling trick in which a small ball or pea is quickly shifted from under one to another of three small cups to fool the spectator guessing its location; (c) an often repeated and widely known joke used especially by entertainers; (d) a prank intended to trick or embarrass someone or cause physical discomfort.
2. mare's nest: (a) a peculiar trick or device; (b) a false discovery, illusion, or deliberate hoax; (c) tricky or questionable practices or conduct; (d) an evasive trick or maneuver.
3. fribble: (a) to trifle or fool away; (b) one who plays practical jokes; (c) to respond so as to be caught (as by a trick); (d) to deliberately mislead: fool, trick.
4. dido: (a) a geometric and especially a circular pattern of flattened stalks in a field of grain now usually attributed to natural phenomena or to the work of hoaxers trying to create the impression of a visit by extraterrestrial beings; (b) a mischievous or capricious act: prank, antic; (c) an expression or trick used in conjuring; (d) a conceited foolish person.
5. footle: (a) to talk or act foolishly; (b) an artful device to evade, deceive, or trick; (c) a subordinate clown or acrobat in old comedies who mimics ludicrously the tricks of the principal; (d) to trick by ingenuity or cunning.
6. jape: (a) an old joke or story; (b) to trick into believing or accepting as genuine something false and often preposterous; (c) to fool especially by fast boastful talk; (d) to say or do something jokingly or mockingly.
7. ropery: (a) something accepted or established by fraud or fabrication; (b) roguish tricks or banter; (c) to mislead the mind or judgment of: deceive, trick; (d) something not to be taken seriously: a trifling matter.
8. fob off: (a) a trick play in football in which the ball carrier takes the ball from the raised hand of a teammate who is faking a pass; (b) a practical joke in which a match is surreptitiously inserted between the upper and the sole of a victim's shoe and lighted; (c) to put off with a trick, excuse, or inferior substitute; (d) the condition of having one's clothing wedged between the buttocks usually from having one's pants or underpants yanked up from behind as a prank.
9. chicanery: (a) joking or jesting often inappropriately; (b) a device or apparatus used by a magician to achieve the illusion of magic in a trick; (c) deception by artful subterfuge or sophistry: trickery; (d) a stale or corny joke, observation, or story.
10. cully: (a) one easily tricked or imposed on: dupe; (b) a supposedly very early hominid erroneously reconstructed from a combination of human and animal skeletal remains the latter of which were later found to have been planted by a hoaxer; (c) a trick or device used to attract business or attention; (d) a joke for or about a select group of people.
If your readers are wanting to pin a cardboard poisson d'avril to your back, or if they gave you a fool's cap in a box recently, ProofreadNOW has the perfect strategy to turn you from court jester to royal scribe. We examine the spelling, punctuation, and clarity of your ad, proposal, Web page, brochure, or anything else in print. We're never fooled by mistakes...not even some of the time.
1:b 2:b 3:a 4:b 5:a 6:d 7:b 8:c 9:c 10:a Berate Yourself: Everybody's fool.
3 to 5 correct: Hardheaded fool.
6 to 7 correct: Poor little fool.
8 to 9 correct: Fool on the hill.
All 10 correct: Nobody's fool!
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| Weekly Grammar Tip |
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NONE - Is it singular or plural?
As a pronoun, none means (1) not any, (2) not one, (3) not any such thing or person, and (4) no part.
Overzealous proofreaders may want to keep the verb associated with none singular, basing their thinking on the derivation of none from Old English "not one." But the universal view among grammarians today is that none can be either singular or plural, depending on what you mean in your sentence.
Determine your verb by considering the noun that follows of in the phrase introduced by none: if the noun is singular, make the verb singular. If the noun is plural, base your choice on whether you would be more inclined to use not one (singular) or not any (plural) after none. |
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| Word of the Week |
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bruit
Pronunciation: brüt
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, noise
Date: 15th century
Definition: report; rumor
Example: "Investors have breathed a world-wide sigh of relief in the waning weeks of March as equity markets have shown signs of upward vigor. The question now being bruited around the financial centers of the world is: Have we hit bottom?"
- Peter J. Tanous, writing in the Wall Street Journal, 3/30/2009, p. A21.
Definition source: Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary.
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Copyright 2009 by ProofreadNOW.com, Inc., 447 Boston Street, Topsfield, MA 01983 USA. Published weekly (we try) by the editors at ProofreadNOW.com, Inc. and sent to customers of record and to opt-in guests. Many readers find it is best to read a portion, put it aside, then come back and read more.
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