GrammarPhile Blog

Today is International Left-Handers Day. Left-handed people are in their right minds. "Left" is the past tense of "leave." "Leaves" are foliage. Clear up your confusion with today's vocabulary test.


1. cade:
(a) on or toward the left side of a ship;
(b) given or left by a will;
(c) left by its mother and reared by hand;
(d) a Chinese cabbage forming an open head with left-winding white stalks and green leaves.

2. sitzmark
(a) a depression left in the snow by a skier falling backward;
(b) a pleat made by forming two folded edges one facing right and the other left;
(c) the paint left on a surface by a single application of a brush or palette knife;
(d) to put (a matrix) in a form with all the nonzero elements along the diagonal from upper left to lower right.

3. significant digit
(a) the leftmost digit in a number;
(b) any of the digits of a number beginning with the digit farthest to the left that is not zero and ending with the last digit farthest to the right that is either not zero or that is a zero but is considered to be exact;
(c) one digit connected ("married") to another, as in the "5" in Car 54 Where Are You?;
(d) any digit greater than 5.

4. service stripe
(a) a high-water or sometimes low-water mark left by tidal water or a flood;
(b) a temporary mark left on a windshield of a car that has been serviced;
(c) a stripe worn on an enlisted man's left sleeve to indicate three years of service in the army or four years in the navy;
(d) a bud that develops into a leafy shoot and does not produce flowers.

5. pot liquor
(a) a crescent-shaped liquefied dumpling filled usually with pork, steamed, and then fried;
(b) a high-alcohol distillate created in a pot-bellied stove;
(c) the liquid left in a pot after cooking something;
(d) a double-fisted contraband.

6. paradiddle
(a) something (as a piece of writing) that is mutilated or left unfinished;
(b) a poem written and intended to be read right to left;
(c) two diddles;
(d) a quick succession of drumbeats slower than a roll and alternating left- and right-hand strokes in a typical L-R-L-L, R-L-R-R pattern.

7. OS
(a) medical shorthand for "left eye";
(b) medical shorthand for "left arm";
(c) medical shorthand for "left brain";
(d) medical shorthand for "left ear."

8. ort
(a) Gaelic for "east";
(b) a morsel left at a meal;
(c) not diluted or adulterated;
(d) indy's ousemate.

9. mortmain
(a) a stereoscopic motion or still picture in which the right component of a composite image usually red in color is superposed on the left component in a contrasting color to produce a three-dimensional effect when viewed through correspondingly colored filters in the form of spectacles;
(b) left for dead;
(c) on or toward the left side of a ship;
(d) the condition of property or other gifts left to a corporation in perpetuity especially for religious, charitable, or public purposes.

10. Left-Bank
(a) Shaq's downfall;
(b) of, relating to, situated in, or characteristic of the bohemian district of Paris on the left bank of the Seine River;
(c) the leftist division of a group (as a political party);
(d) where Renee lives, after she just walked away.

 

So, how's your left-handed vocabulary? Find out here.

We're often asked how to punctuate requests properly and politely. Today's post addresses this issue.

Want to be known as an eloquent speaker and compelling writer? Use the subjunctive mood more. Use it to express a wish, a demand, a requirement, an exhortation, or a statement contrary to fact--as well as in a number of fixed idioms.

 

Here are some writing tips from the leading legal writing style guide, The Redbook / A Manual On Legal Style by Bryan Garner. Our topic today is numbers.

The Redbook generally follows AP in the basics: spell out one through nine and use numerals for 10 and above. Here are some other rules from The Redbook:

Do you know someone who won't get out of bed for fear of crossing paths with a black cat or being hit by a meteor? We're glad you braved the day and came to work. Do watch out for ladders, though. Walking under a ladder is unsafe all year long.

 

The consequence for abusing uppercase letters is Capital Punishment. Don't let us find you guilty! Take heed of the following and let's "eliminate" mistakes before they end up in print.

Capitalize these common terms:

• the Gulf
• the Upper West Side
• the Promised Land
• the Sun Belt
• the continental United States
• Lake Michigan; Lakes Michigan and Erie; the Great Lakes
• Washington State; the state of Washington
• the Great Plains
• the Wild West
• the Old World
• Back Bay
• the Badger State
• the Upper West Side
• Skid Row

Other terms are not so straightforward. There are variations based on context and usage.

• Central America; central Asia; central Illinois
• southern Colorado; Southern California; South Florida; Central Florida
• the Southeast, the Southwest, southeastern, southwestern
• the West, western, westerner (of a country); the West Coast; the West, Western (referring to the culture of the Occident, or Europe and the Western Hemisphere)
• the South, southern, a southerner (of a country); but the South, Southern, a Southerner (in American War Between the States contexts)
• the equator; equatorial climate; the Equatorial Current; Equatorial Guinea (formerly Spanish Guinea)
• the tropics, tropical; the Tropic of Cancer; the Neotropics, Neotropical; the subtropics
• the poles; the North Pole; the North Polar ice cap; polar regions
• Antarctica; the Arctic; Arctic waters; a mass of Arctic air

Entities that appear on maps are always capitalized, as are adjectives and nouns derived from them. An initial the as part of a name is lowercased in running text, except in the rare case of an initial the in the name of a city.

• Asia; Asian
• South China Sea
• Ireland; Irish
• the North Pole
• BUT The Hague

Governmental entities are sometimes treated differently.

• Bozo works for the Village of Forest Park.
• That is a City of Chicago ordinance.
• BUT Residents of the village of Forest Park enjoy easy access to the city of Chicago.

Source: The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition.

Know these words. Use them properly. That way, your smart friends will embrace you and your less-than-smart friends will look up to you and ask you things. And who doesn't like to be asked things?

 

Adjectives that should be adverbs