GrammarPhile Blog

Who will win today? Anyone? Everyone! Individuals? Organizations? Even Unions?

The vowels are A, E, I, O, and U. If you thought Y was a vowel, you’re only half right since Y is a semi-vowel.

Here’s an interesting thought, one that probably had not occurred to you earlier today, this week, or even this lifetime: Vowels are created by the free passage of breath through the larynx and mouth. When the mouth is obstructed during speech production—most often by the tongue or teeth—the resulting sound is a consonant. Try that right now.

Want more about vowels? Here are 10 of the 4,000-plus English words containing all the vowels. If you get them all, you’ll get an A. If you get none, you’ll get that consonant that comes after E.

Lots of us are playing Wordle every day. If you’re not playing Wordle, you should be. After all, Wordle can save you! Just ask the 80-year-old woman in Chicago who was saved from a naked stranger who insisted she take a bath with him! Yuk! Anyway, if you are playing, check out our list of stupid Wordle words (5 letters, no plurals, no proper nouns) and see if you recognize any. You never know when these are going to show up.

It’s a good week to celebrate our independence – make that Independence with a capital I. The Declaration of Independence is dated July 4, 1776, but was signed in August of that year by brave patriots who risked their property, possessions and their very lives to start a new nation. Our words today deal with freedom, independence (or lack of it) and rights. Never forget that freedom was and is not free. Long live America!

Select your answer below for each question. When done, you'll see your score and the correct answers.

(Most People Couldn’t)

If you took our most recent spelling quiz and were disappointed with your score or confused by the answers, this post is for you.

Keep reading for a full breakdown of the right answers, the wrong answers, and definitions/examples of both.

A Breakdown of the Spelling Quiz That Tripped Up a Bunch of Smart Professionals

1. Anchors away/aweigh, my boys!

❌ WRONG – away: The captain isn’t telling sailors to put the anchor in their pocket.

✔️  RIGHT – aweigh: To “weigh anchor” means to lift an anchor in preparation for sailing (and in doing so, you find out how much the anchor weighs, hence the saying). In other words, “Let’s go!”

2. She has a flair/flare for impressing juries.

❌ WRONG – flare: That thing you light when your ship is headed to Davey Jones’ locker or your car is disabled. Please don’t use them in court.

              ✔️  RIGHT – flair: A unique talent or style.

(Most People Can’t)

This is part 3 of a spelling quiz we recently posed to a group of highly educated legal marketing and business development professionals at an annual conference. They were sure they could ace our questions—after all, communication is the foundation of their businesses.

Guess what?

Many of them made mistakes! In fact, many of them made the same mistakes! They were astounded.

So here’s our challenge: See if you can do better. Then tell us about it in the comments.

(Most People Can't)

This is part 2 of a spelling quiz we recently posed to a group of highly educated legal marketing and business development professionals at an annual conference. They were sure they could ace our questions—communication is the foundation of their businesses.

Guess what?

Most of them made mistakes! In fact, many of them made the same mistakes! They were gobsmacked.

                    (Most People Couldn’t)

If you took our most recent spelling quiz and were disappointed with your score or confused by the answers, this post is for you.

Keep reading for a full breakdown of the right answers, the wrong answers, and definitions of both.

A Breakdown of The Spelling Quiz That Tripped Up a Bunch of Smart Professionals

1. The facts involved a study in plain/plane geometry.

❌ WRONG – plain: Not decorated, obvious, boring, or ordinary. (We won’t argue that geometry is boring to some people, but that’s not the intended meaning here.)

✔️  RIGHT – plane: “A flat level or surface” in this case. In other words: the study of 2D shapes.

2. He spoke pidgin/pigeon English when he had to.

❌ WRONG – pigeon: It’s feathered, gray-ish, and poops all over buildings and park benches. But pigeons don’t speak an official language.

✔️  RIGHT – pidgin: A simplified speech that allows people speaking different languages to communicate. The word originated from a Chinese corruption of the word “business.” A “creole” is a complete pidgin language, such as Haitian Creole, Gullah, and Jamaican Creole, passed down to the children of adult pidgin speakers, thereby becoming a native language.

(Most People Can't)

We recently posed this spelling quiz to a group of highly educated legal marketing and business development professionals at an annual conference. They were sure they could ace our questions—communication is the foundation of their businesses.

The surprising results?

Many of them made mistakes! In fact, many of them made the same mistakes! They were flabbergasted.

Think you can do better? Have at it (no help from Google or Chat GPT beforehand, though)!

On this day in 1962, the Four Seasons earned their first No. 1 hit with “Sherry.” Frankie Valli had been hard at work trying to become a star for the better part of a decade before the Four Seasons achieved their breakthrough. They had come together as a group in several stages over the previous four years, changing their name in 1961 from the Four Lovers after failing an audition at a New Jersey bowling alley called The Four Seasons. It was keyboard player Bob Gaudio who wrote the song that would launch the group’s career.

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On September 17, 1976, NASA publicly unveiled its first space shuttle, the Enterprise, during a ceremony in Palmdale, California. Development of the aircraft-like spacecraft cost almost $10 billion and took nearly a decade. In 1977, the Enterprise became the first space shuttle to fly freely when it was lifted to a height of 25,000 feet by a Boeing 747 airplane and then released, gliding back to Edwards Air Force Base on its own accord. Try our word quiz and see how high you can soar and how far you can glide.