Brush up On Your Vocab & Grammar

www.m-w.com

As an English teacher in China, my linguistic skills have suffered dramatically over the last two years. I now regularly use sentence structures which I know for a fact to be wrong, because I know my students will understand me better. An example conversation?

Me: 'Willy, do you have your homework?'
Willy: 'Have'
Me: 'You have?'
Willy: 'Yes'

One of the ways I like to polish my English from time to time (apart from reading and writing) is by watching the 'Ask the Editor' video's on the Merriam-Webster website. You can find the series here.

Are you sometimes confused by certain words? How to spell them or which one of two words is appropriate in a particular situation? I deal with English learners and speakers alike, who ask me questions about this stuff.

But it can be somewhat embarrassing to have to admit you don't know some of this stuff. So, what better way to search in anonymity than the Internet?

The Merriam-Webster website has great stuff! How about learning the difference between 'affect' and 'effect', or finding out the hilarious origin of 'defenestration'? For English learners, it could be finally learning the difference between then and than that helps you sleep easy. Does the word X-mas make you feel uneasy? Find out the true origins (hint: It's not crossing out 'Christ'!). And there's so much more!

A language is something that is continually evolving, and it can be hard to keep track of this process. Taking a minute to learn a new word (or an old one properly) can go a long way to helping you become a better speaker, writer, teacher or student.

P.S. what was the last word you looked up? Was it the spelling, meaning or use of the word you checked?