How to Use the Word Ought

You ought to learn to use the word “ought.”

What you see above is a usage example of the verb “ought,” which has two different meanings.

1 “Ought” can indicate correctness or duty, often when criticizing the actions of another.

She ought to slow down so she doesn’t get a ticket.

2 “Ought” can indicate that something is probable.

Three minutes ought to be long enough.

A lot of English learners struggle to use the word “ought.” This is because “ought” is what we call a semi-modal verb. It acts like a main verb in some ways and a modal verb in others. It is usually followed by “to” and it does not change its form depending on the person.

Your sister ought to clean up this mess.

You ought clean up your room.

Replace the “to” with “not” if you are making a negative statement.

We ought not take my mother’s car.

This short explanation ought to help you on your way to using “ought.”

Traveling or Travelling?

How great is it to travel? To meet new people, see new places, experience different cultures, live life the way life is lived somewhere else. Plenty of good things are associated with travel, but there’s one particular issue that can make traveling annoying: the spelling. Travel is easy enough to spell and not at all confusing, but “traveling,” “traveler,” “traveled”? These words are a common cause of confusion because some people spell them with one L while others use two.

Traveling or travelling depends on where is your audience. Traveling is the preferred spelling in the U.S. Travelling is the preferred spelling in the UK or in the Commonwealth. This American-British spelling difference carries for other forms: traveled or travelled and traveler or traveller.

To clarify, if you look through books or magazines for examples, you’ll see that both spellings are used, but the two-L version tends to be used in publications that also use spellings like “colour” or “flavour.” Those publications are written in British English, while the ones that use shorter spellings—“traveled,” “flavor,” and “color”—are written in American English. So the difference between “traveling” and “travelling” is really a variation of dialect. Both spellings are correct. Or, more precisely, neither one of them is wrong.

Traveling vs. Travelling

The word travel has more than one syllable—it’s a multisyllabic word. In American English, when a multisyllabic word ends in a vowel and a consonant (in that order), you double the consonant when adding a suffix only if the stress falls on the final syllable. For instance, in the word repel, the stress falls on the final syllable, which means that you double the consonant when you add a suffix: repelling. But in travel, the stress falls on the first syllable, so there’s no doubling.

“Traveling” and “travelling” shared the same fate as many other words in the English language that have two different spellings. The person who’s usually credited (or blamed) for this is Noah Webster—the Webster of Merriam-Webster dictionary fame. He was a linguist and lexicographer who greatly influenced American English. Webster preferred the shorter versions of many words that had multiple spellings. He included the shorter versions in his dictionaries, and, over time, they became dominant in the United States. At the same time, the rest of the English-speaking world gravitated toward the longer spellings. So, while both Americans and Brits can travel, the former can enjoy traveling while the latter can enjoy travelling.

The United States is pretty much alone in using the shorter form. Canada and Australia generally follow the rules of British English, and that’s why Canadians and Australians can be fond of travelling, not traveling.

By now, you probably know when to use which spelling—it should conform to the place your audience is. If you’re writing a paper for a college class in the United States, you should use the shorter spelling. However, if you live in the United States but are applying for a job in Australia, you could instead choose to use the spelling they prefer.

Travelling and Traveling: Examples

As a visitor traveling from the United States, you must obtain a visa, which you can apply for before you leave for Cuba. —Conde Nast Traveler

As the reporters who traveled to the Group of 20 summit meeting with President Obama from Hawaii piled out and walked under the wing to record his arrival… —The New York Times

​Passengers travelling to Bristol Airport are being urged to leave extra time as roadworks clog up a major link road for an entire month. —Bristol Post

Originally from Athens, and having lived in London for five years, he’d travelled on the train specifically to head in to town to “see the drunken crowds. It should be fun.” —The Guardian

Quick Tips: Using Contractions Correctly

Contractions are useful in both spoken and written language. They save time, use fewer letters than full words, and help us to sound less formal when the situation calls for it. Contractions are combinations of two words and, in most cases, the apostrophe indicates where letters are omitted. Here’s a handy list of contractions.

Common contractions Do + not = Don’t (The apostrophe tells us that a letter, O, has been removed.) Are/is + not = Aren’t/isn’t They + are = They’re It + is/has = It’s Could/Would/Should + have = Could’ve/Would’ve/Should’ve Could/Would/Should + not = Couldn’t/Wouldn’t/Shouldn’t We + are = We’re Will + not = Won’t (This is the slight exception to the rule that the apostrophe replaces the dropped letters. With this contraction, the spelling changes completely.)

Less common contractions Shall + not = Shan’t Might + not = Mightn’t You + all = Y’all (slang) Am/is + not = Ain’t (slang)

When to Use Contractions We use contracted words all the time in speech. This is natural because these habits help us to communicate quickly. Unfortunately, habits and tendencies that are common in speech are not always optimal in writing, especially when writing for formal situations. For this reason, we encourage our users to avoid using contractions when writing for work, school, and/or any formal environment.

Q Without U: 9 Must-Know Words to Celebrate Scrabble Day!

This Monday, April 13, is Scrabble Day, and Grammarly is celebrating with our fellow word-lovers, Dictionary.com!

Guest post by Michele Turner, CEO at Dictionary.com

Can you play a Q without a U in Scrabble? Whether you’re playing Scrabble, Words With Friends, or any other fun word game, here is a list of nine high-scoring solutions for the “Q conundrum,” so that you can make winning words with the letter Q — without its traditional letter companion, the U.

• Qi – a variant spelling on the word chi, qi is the vital life force believed to circulate around the body and through the universe in Chinese medicine.
• Qat – an evergreen shrub of Arabia and Africa, the leaves of which are used as a narcotic when chewed or made into a beverage.
• Faqir – a Muslim or Hindu religious ascetic or mendicant monk commonly considered a wonder-worker or a dervish.  Played on a triple word, this term could work wonders for your game. Can also be spelled fakir or faquir.
• QWERTY – yes, this acronym coined in the 1920s to describe the standard keyboard, can be used in the game.
• Qaid – refers to a tribal chief, judge, or senior official, and it stems from the Arabic word meaning “leader.” It entered the English language in the mid-1800s and is sometimes spelled caid.
• Qadi – related to qaid, this word refers to a judge in a Muslim community. It’s a useful variant when trying to stack words to play do or it.
• Sheqel – an ancient unit of weight equivalent to about a quarter or half an ounce. Today it is commonly used to refer to the Israeli currency, though it is also a slang term meaning money. Also spelled shekel.
• Qindar – a monetary denomination in Albania that is equivalent to 100th of a lek, the standard monetary unit. Also spelled qintar.
• Qoph – the 19th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Want more for your word game arsenal? Get Scrabble and Words With Friends word values by searching words at Dictionary.com. Search results will show a word’s corresponding score on the right hand side of the page, truly bringing words – and your game – to life! Keep these ten valuable words in mind as well; which will all rack up points in both games.

• Chapeau – a hat.
• Convex – having a surface that is curved or rounded outward.
• Exequy – a funeral procession.
• Frequent – happening or occurring at short intervals.
• Jacquard– a fabric with an elaborately woven pattern produced on a Jacquard loom.
• Jaywalk – to cross a street at a place other than a regular crossing or in a heedless manner, as diagonally or against a traffic light.
• Kumquat – small, round or oblong citrus fruit having a sweet rind and acid pulp, used chiefly for preserves.
• Mystique – an aura of mystery of mystical power surrounding a particular occupation or pursuit.
• Quixotic – extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary, impractical, or impracticable.
• Quiz – an informal test or examination of a student or class.

Broadening your command of language by building your vocabulary not only gives you an edge in gameplay, it also translates to better communication skills in all parts of your life.

What’s the best Scrabble word you’ve played? Share in the comments!

About the Author

Michele Turner is CEO of Dictionary.com, providing online and mobile properties that are top destinations for learning and word discovery. Dictionary’s products serve 70 million unique users monthly across mobile and web. Visit www.dictionary.com for all the contextual tools you need to boost your Scrabble or Words With Friends game and truly expand your vocabulary.

Funny Phrases: Whet Your Appetite

It’s no wonder that many people misspell the phrase “whet your appetite.” After all, your mouth waters when your appetite is stirred, so why wouldn’t the phrase be spelled as “wet your appetite”?

In its most literal sense, “whet” means to sharpen like you would a knife or blade. When used in the phrase “whet your appetite,” it means to arouse interest or eagerness, to metaphorically sharpen your appetite. When your appetite is whetted, you’re hungry and ready to eat!

If you want to learn more about idioms and odd phrases, read this post about “nip it in the bud.”

What’s the Worst Poem of all Time?

It was a Sunday evening, the 28th of December in the year 1879. A dire storm was hitting Scotland hard—in Glasgow, the wind speed was measured at 71 mph. In Dundee, the wind was pummeling the bridge over the Firth of Tay, the Tay Rail Bridge, blowing at a speed of 80 mph and at a right angle. The wind, along with questionable design and craftsmanship of the bridge, was blamed when the the bridge collapsed that night, taking with it a train that was passing over it and the lives of everyone aboard. The event was later dubbed the “Tay Bridge disaster,” and there were at least two poems written about it.

One of them was “Die Brück’ am Tay” by the German poet Theodor Fontane. The other was “The Tay Bridge Disaster” by the Scottish poet William McGonagall, who was considered to be a particularly bad poet during his lifetime. Over a century later “The Tay Bridge Disaster” is still one of the top contenders for the title of Worst Poem Ever.

What Makes a Poem Bad?

There are those who believe that there’s no such thing as a good poem. Plato was one of them—he believed that all poetry was bad. The ancient Greek philosopher had three objections to poetry. He considered it to be unethical because it promoted passions he deemed undesirable. He did not find poetry to be philosophical, because it didn’t provide any true knowledge. He also found it less worthy than more practical arts, which diminished poetry’s educational value. These views, of course, had their opponents—most notably Aristotle, who defended poetry, saying that it provided the valuable experience of catharsis, among other things.

Plato’s objections and Aristotle’s valiant defense dealt with the very essence of poetry. Both men were philosophers, after all. But Quintus Horatius Flaccus, a.k.a. Horace, was a Roman poet who, in his work Ars Poetica gave the world a set of guidelines for what makes poetry—or any other kind of writing, for that matter—good. Horace was an adversary of purple prose, which was the term he coined for flowery language. He advocated for unity and proper use of meter and style. He set standards for the traits a poet should possess, including a superior intellect, common sense, and adherence to higher ideals. By setting standards for good poetry, Horace also set standards for poetry that’s not good.

What Would Quintus Horatius Flaccus Say Today?

Horace’s ideas proved to be very influential—he was an inspiration behind the thirteenth century Poetria nova by Geoffrey of Vinsauf, which aimed to replace Horace’s work. Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism, written in the early eighteenth century, gives what we call today best practices for poets, but also draws on Horace, among other classical sources, for inspiration.

Over time, of course, the perception of what is good and what is bad in poetry has changed a lot. It would be interesting to see what Horace would say about Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” or Gil-Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not be Televised.” But what was set up so long ago remains true to this day—there are those who think that all poetry is bad. There are also those who think that only certain types of poetry are good and that everything else is bad.

The unfortunate William McGonagall had rotten fish thrown at him when he read his poems in front of audiences. Today, he is still considered one of the worst poets in the world, but if you read any of his works, you might think it’s so bad it’s actually good—there is such a thing today. The same might be said for Theophilus Marzials, whose poem “A Tragedy” might just match the badness of anything McGonagall ever did. Or you can look up Margaret Cavendish or Edgar A. Guest, who are also often cited as very bad poets. Or maybe hunt down the poetry of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings. But maybe, just maybe, you might take Bad Poetry Day as an opportunity to write your own bad poetry. And remember—the worse it gets, the more fun it will be to laugh at it.

Holiday Gift Guide 2015: Get the Perfect Book for Everyone on Your List

You know what feels great? Getting your holiday shopping done and out of the way early. One way to accomplish that is by keeping your game plan simple. Need a present for Aunt Trish? Book. For your brother-in-law? Book. For a special someone who just might be the one? Two books! Read on to find Grammarly’s hand-picked recommendations for everyone on your list:

The History Buff

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, Sarah Vowell Sarah Vowell, widely adored for her ability to make nearly any moment in history at once fascinating, hilarious, and startlingly relevant to the world of today, offers yet another gem: an insightful and unconventional account of George Washington’s trusted officer and friend, that swashbuckling teenage French aristocrat, the Marquis de Lafayette.

 

 

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, Erik Larson Delight the WWI expert on your list with this riveting chronicle of the Lusitania disaster. Knowing that the ship sinks at the end spoils absolutely nothing about this masterfully told true story.

 

 

The Sports Nut

Superbowl Gold: 50 Years of the Big Game, The Editors of Sports Illustrated Between the covers of Superbowl Gold, the football fanatic in your life will find overviews of each championship, accounts of the most stirring performances, commentary from players and coaches, reviews of every halftime show, and lots of fascinating photos. It even covers the commercials!

 

 

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Daniel James Brown The Boys in the Boat is the improbable true story of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant. Also a great pick for The History Buff.

 

 

The Romantic

The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion For a sweet, unconventional romance, look no further than The Rosie Project, the story of an oddly charming, socially challenged genetics professor named Don and a spontaneous whirlwind of a woman named Rosie.

 

 

Uprooted, Naomi Novik Naomi Novik’s spellbinding tale has everything: monsters, magic, love, and at its heart, a powerful and courageous heroine. Also a great pick for The Adventurer.

 

 

 

The Adventurer

A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson Bill Bryson’s classic book about walking the Appalachian Trail is a sure bet for hikers, nature lovers, and anyone who enjoys a simultaneously fascinating and hilarious tale about the great outdoors.

 

 

Nimona, Noelle Stevenson Is your Adventurer adventurous enough to try a graphic novel? The brilliantly subversive National Book Award finalist Nimona turns the classic adventure story on its head, following a supervillain and his mysterious sidekick as they set out to prove that their kingdom’s good guys aren’t quite the heroes everybody thinks they are.

 

 

The Scientist

Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words, Randall Munroe In Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe, creator of the webcomic xkcd, delivers exactly what he promises: explanations about cool things. Funny, interesting, and always understandable, this book is for anyone—age 5 to 105—who has ever wondered how things work, and why. Also a great pick for The Nerd.

 

 

Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe, Lisa Randall Did dark matter kill the dinosaurs? The armchair scientist on your holiday list will clearly want to know the answer, which, fortunately, can be found in this new book by the renowned particle physicist Lisa Randall.

 

 

The Nerd

You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), Felicia Day Nerd icon Felicia Day’s rags-to-riches story of rising to Internet fame and embracing her weirdness along the way is sure to resonate with the nerds on your list.

 

 

 

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars Trilogy: Verily, A New Hope; The Empire Striketh Back; The Jedi Doth Return, Ian Doescher Make a list of everyone you know who is a Star Wars geek or a Shakespeare lover. Then give this brilliant boxed set to all of them. Also a great pick for The Classics Lover.

 

 

 

The Classics Lover

Penguin Drop Caps The beautiful, colorful, Penguin Drop Cap series makes a lovely gift for a literature lover. Choose a book by her favorite author, or give her a set that matches her initials. Just be prepared to take the blame when she decides she has to collect them all.

 

 

100 Years of the Best American Short Stories, Edited by Lorrie Moore The centennial celebration of the Best American Short Stories series features forty of the more than two thousand stories published in previous editions, hand-selected by Lorrie Moore, and accompanied by commentary from series editor Heidi Pitlor. Together, the stories and commentary offer an extraordinary guided tour through a century of literature.

 

 

The Mogul

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, Peter Thiel Peter Thiel’s smart treatise on innovation and success makes a great gift for the entrepreneurially inclined. Zero to One presents an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.

 

 

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Ashlee Vance Who better to inspire the energetic innovator on your list than the legendary Elon Musk? Ashlee Vance’s insightful book, written with exclusive access to Musk himself, traces the entrepreneur’s journey from a rough upbringing to the helm of multiple world-changing companies.

 

 

The Health Enthusiast

Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ, Giulia Enders With quirky charm, Gut reveals the story of the body’s most ignored and least appreciated organ. The health enthusiast on your list will thank you for this smart and useful book.

 

 

 

Natural Born Heroes, Christopher McDougall Christopher McDougall’s instant classic Born to Run changed the game for dedicated runners. In his new book, he discovers that the secrets of ancient Greek heroes are still alive and well on the island of Crete, and ready to be unleashed in the muscles and minds of casual athletes and aspiring heroes everywhere.

 

 

The Foodie

Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook This one is perfect for any pre-foodies you know. With the help of some truly, er, colorful language, Thug Kitchen proves that kale doesn’t have to be pretentious.

 

 

 

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, J. Kenji López-Alt And this one is perfect for the full-blown foodie. The Food Lab offers a grand tour of the science of cooking explored through popular American dishes, illustrated in full color. Also a great pick for The Scientist.

 

 

Have a recommendation of your own? Don’t keep it to yourself! Share it in the comment section or via our Facebook or Twitter feeds.

5 Authors Who You May Not Know Were Women

Let’s say you’ve written your very first novel, and you’re shopping it around to various publishers. And they generally like it, or at least one of them does, but they have a weird request—you need to change your name before they’ll publish the book. Not legally, of course. That would be silly. Just, you know, assume a pen name or use your initials instead of your full name because it might help you reach certain segments of the market. So if your name is Joanne, for example, you might go with something like J. K. in order to attract boy readers. Never mind the fact that you’ll become a celebrated author, even after the news that you’re a woman gets out. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what happened with J. K. Rowling. And it illustrates that even today, gender matters in the world of writing and female writers still have to fight for equal treatment.

In the literary world, the tradition of women posing as men in order to publish their work reaches back to at least the nineteenth century. Jane Austen hid her identity, although not her gender, behind the pen name “A Lady.” The Brontë sisters all wrote under male pen names at one time or another. Louisa May Alcott championed the use of ambiguous initials. And all of them are recognized under their own names today. But are there other female authors who worked (or still work) under male pen names who haven’t gained that recognition? Let’s have a look.

1George Sand (1804–1876)

If there’s one thing to say about Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, better known as George Sand, it’s that she was a lady ahead of her time and who never left anyone indifferent to her. Flaubert and Balzac sang her praises; Baudelaire was her critic. She wrote novels, memoirs, and plays, and she was notorious for her companionship with prominent men, including the writer Charles Didier, the composer Frederic Chopin, and the writer Prosper Mérimée. Among her more famous works are the novels La Mare au Diable, La Petite Fadette, and the autobiographical novel A Winter in Majorca.

2 George Eliot (1819–1880)

Mary Ann Evans wanted her literary work to be taken seriously, so she did something that made perfect sense in the age she lived in—she took George Eliot as her pen name. Eliot became one of the most prominent authors of the Victorian era, writing seven novels and a number of books of poetry and short stories. Her best-known work includes the novels Adam Bede, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda.

3 Vernon Lee (1856–1935)

Violet Paget was a British author who used the pen name Vernon Lee to publish her work. Paget was a prolific writer, known today for essays about art, music, and travel as much as for her supernatural fiction. Paget was also politically active as a pacifist during World War I and held feminist views. She had romantic relationships with women, and like George Sand, she had a nonconformist attitude toward the prescribed gender roles of her time.

4 Isak Dinesen (1885–1962)

At the 1985 Academy Award ceremony, the movie Out of Africa won no fewer than seven Oscars, including the one for best picture. The movie was based on a memoir of the same title by a Danish author named Isak Dinesen. Dinesen’s real name was Karen Blixen, and Isak Dinesen is not the only male pen name she used—she also wrote under the name Pierre Andrézel. Out of Africa is not the only book of hers that was adapted into an Oscar-winning movie—she also wrote Babette’s Feast, which was made into a movie that won an Oscar for best foreign language film.

5 Rob Thurman

Rob Thurman is a contemporary New York Times bestselling author whose work includes the urban fiction–themed Cal Leandros series and the Trickster series. Thurman’s actual name is Robyn, but her use of a male moniker as a literary name doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with catering to audiences—Rob is actually Thurman’s nickname. She did, however, keep the “about the author” sections of her books gender-ambiguous until her fourth novel.

Spoken Language Rules Work In Signed Communication, Too

Language is language, regardless of the way you communicate. A new study by Psychology and Linguistics Professor Iris Berent at Northeastern University demonstrates that similar structures rule communication, and whether communication is via speech or sign is of secondary importance.

Basically, people adhere to certain patterns for what’s permissible in language and reject structures that “seem wrong.” By observing that research subjects with no knowledge of sign language mapped the rules of spoken language onto signs they were shown, researchers learned that ingrained rules play a bigger role than previously thought.

Sign language was already known to have its own grammar and rules for pronunciation, word order, and usage before this study. Beyond that, American Sign Language (ASL) has a very different vocabulary and set of rules from sign languages used in other countries, and there are different regional accents and dialects within one country, just like in spoken language.

Berent said that her research aimed “to reveal the complex structure of sign language, and in so doing, disabuse the public of this notion [that sign language is not really a language].”

How do you research language without taking the time to make people learn a whole new language?

Berent’s lab approached the problem by focusing on words and signs that had the same basic structure. Then, they extended that structure to meaningless sounds and signs. The researchers showed signs with similar patterns to participants with no knowledge of sign language and asked the participants to rate whether certain patterns seemed to make sense.

The main pattern was doubling: words and signs with a sound or sign that was repeated. Here are some examples:

• bagogo
• fatiti
• bizanzan
• slaflaf

If these words seem like they might be right at home in Dr. Seuss, you’re not far off the mark. These combinations are nonsensical, and participants in the study recognized that. The exciting thing for the researchers is that their participants recognized and reacted to this type of pattern in both speech and signs.

The subjects were asked to respond to signs the same way they would to words, judging whether they made sense in certain contexts. If a word was given as a name for a single object, people gave lower ratings to words with doubling than ones without doubling. For example, slaflaf got worse ratings than slafmak. Sure, they both sound like gibberish, but one sounds more likely to be a word. One exception: if subjects were given a word or sign with doubling and told that the doubling signaled plurality, they were more likely to give it a higher rating.

In short: people’s responses to specific forms change based on the linguistic context of those forms.

By finding that people with no knowledge of sign language reacted in the same way to both words and signs with similar patterns, Berent showed that the governing rules for spoken language and sign language aren’t as different as people may think.

Berent’s study shows that sign languages aren’t just based on things like the shapes of objects described in individual words: instead, they rely on abstract rules just like spoken languages do. The idea that the same mechanisms in the brain are at work for both spoken and sign languages is big news for neurologists, psychologists, and linguists alike. In the task of uncovering the mysteries of language, we’re just scratching the surface.

How would you like to learn grammar?

This poll is part of a series that Grammarly is running aimed at better understanding how the public feels about writing, language learning, and grammar.

Please take the poll and share your thoughts in the comments. We can’t wait to hear from you!

If you are interested in more, check out last week’s poll.

What to Write for Fathers’ Day

Like birthdays, Christmas, and Hanukkah, Father’s Day can be rough. Yes, it is a great opportunity to recognize our fathers (and father figures) for their profound impact in our lives, but it is also a time when many of us feel tongue-tied.

How can we tell dad exactly what he means to us in a simple card or letter? Here are five tips for writing the perfect note to dad in honor of Father’s Day:

Share important memories.

Father’s Day is more than just a reminder that you love your dad. It’s a time to recall the best memories you have with him, a day to really show him that he has made a difference in your life. A powerful way to do this is to recall great memories you have with your dad and write about them. Spend some time to paint a vivid picture of that one great day with dad that you will never forget.

Write from the heart.

Whatever you write, make sure it comes from your heart. That is to say, if you are not the sentimental type but you have a great sense of humor, there is no reason to force deep thoughts on to the page. Hit your dad with your best jokes, the ones that he will really appreciate. On the other hand, if you tend to write flowery prose but you aren’t great at stand-up comedy, don’t try to be overly witty.

When writing the perfect Father’s Day message, the old adage “write what you know” is key to success. Your dad knows your voice and style—he’s probably read your work before. And better yet, he knows and loves you. Stick with what you do, and who you are, and the message will be genuine.

Be honest.

Tell your dad exactly what you really want to say. Don’t be afraid that saying “I love you” is too cliché. Don’t worry that telling your dad, “You’ve always been there for me” is cheesy. Sometimes, keeping it simple and straightforward is the best way to approach a note to dad. If, “Thank you for always being there,” is what you want to say, then say it and say it just like that. You can always expand on this idea later.

Remember that mixed sentiments are not mixed messages.

You can combine different sentiments within the same message. For example, you can mention a touching idea alongside a humorous anecdote. Something like, “Dad, thank you so much for always being there for me…like that one time I ran over an orange cone and we had to use a crowbar to get it out of the wheel well!

For inspiration, here is a list of clever, witty, and touching Father’s Day sentiments.

Say thank you.

Regardless of what else you say in your piece, say thank you to your dad. After all, whether your sentiment is “you have always been there,” “you have given me wisdom,” or “you have always fought for me,” what you really are saying is “thanks for being there,” “thanks for your advice,” or “thanks for fighting for me.” Your father will appreciate being thanked.

Writing the perfect Father’s Day message is a lot harder than it seems. The basic ideas you want to convey, however, are pretty straightforward. And, if you speak from the heart, you’ll rarely go wrong.

What are some of your favorite Father’s Day messages? Share more tips and links in the comments below!

Grammar Basics: What Is Grammar Case?

Do you enjoy team sports? Some team positions carry special responsibilities. In hockey, the goalie’s job is to block the other team from scoring. In American football, the place holder steadies the football for the field goal kicker. If you imagine language as a team sport, you can think of grammatical cases as team positions. They tell you the special roles of pronouns. Only three cases are common in modern English—subjective, objective, and possessive.

The Subjective Case

When a pronoun is the subject of a clause or sentence, it is in the subjective case. Therefore, the pronouns I, you, he, she, it, we, they, and who are subjective case pronouns.

The Objective Case

Pronouns that serve as objects of verbs or prepositions are in the objective case: me, you, him, her, it, us, them, and whom.

The Possessive Case

With nouns, you usually indicate possession by adding an apostrophe and the letter S (or just an apostrophe, in the case of most plural nouns). Pronouns demonstrate possession by using possessive case forms. There are two types of possessive pronouns. Possessive determiners (my, your, his, her, its, our, their, whose) and absolute possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his, hers, ours, and theirs).

Did you notice that some of the pronouns appear in more than one case? Just as an athlete might enjoy more than one sport, pronouns can be versatile too. It’s interesting to learn about the different ways individual members contribute to the team, and it’s cool to know the grammatical cases!

Relax, Grammar Pedant. Everything You Know Is Wrong

Rules are rules, and they exist for a reason. They create order and minimize uncertainty. They are necessary because nothing would work without them. But some people don’t seem to understand that.

They don’t understand why it’s bad to split your infinitives, or why you shouldn’t start a sentence with a conjunction, or why you can’t end it with a preposition. Some people just don’t care. Some people just want to watch the world burn, fuelled by the misuse of “good” for “well,” and “while” for “though.” But if the world really depends on people adhering to those strict and sometimes obscure grammar rules, it might as well burn. Because all of the pedantic rules mentioned above are wrong. Forget everything you know, grammar pedant, because it’s all a lie.

Okay, so maybe the world won’t burn, and maybe not everything you know about grammar is a lie. A lot of it might be, though. Some grammar rules are simply myths with little to no basis in how the language is actually used. Other grammar rules aren’t applicable across the whole spectrum of English subtypes and dialects. And there are rules with so many exceptions that they probably shouldn’t be called rules.

Take the myth about ending sentences with a preposition, for example. We know exactly who to blame for this little superstition. John Dryden, a seventeenth-century British poet, was the person who came up with this “rule.” Robert Lowth, a bishop in the Church of England and a composer of prescriptive grammar textbooks, is often blamed for perpetuating the myth, but in fact he said quite clearly that avoiding a sentence-ending preposition is a matter of style, not grammar. Why did Dryden and Lowth do this? Well, they were men of their time, and in their time it was very popular to force English to follow the the rules of another language. That other language was, you guessed it, Latin. It’s true, you can’t end a sentence with a preposition in Latin. But it’s a common and correct construction in English.

The prohibition against splitting infinitives is another one that seems to have sprung from a fondness for applying Latin grammar rules to English. In English, splitting an infinitive means inserting an adverb between “to” and the uninflected form of a verb (e.g., “to boldly go”). Latin doesn’t have split infinitives because in Latin an infinitive is a single word. But in English, rigidly avoiding split infinitives can change the meaning of your sentence or make it more difficult to understand. So go ahead and split an infinitive when you need to, Latin be damned.

Another of these hobgoblins is the supposed rule that you can’t start a sentence with a conjunction. Starting too many sentences with conjunctions will make your writing awkward, for sure, but never doing it? It’s overkill. Conjunctions glue the elements of your writing together. These elements might be words or clauses. But they can also be sentences.

The rules governing the use of “that” and “which” are also a bit shaky. The rule says that we should use “that” for restrictive relative clauses and save “which” for nonrestrictive relative clauses. This rule is sort of half-true, because using “that” for nonrestrictive relative clauses does sound a bit awkward. But the part of the rule that says you can’t use “which” for restrictive relative clauses is, well, not a good rule. You can do it, and there are situations when it’s the only choice you can make.

The point is that you shouldn’t blindly follow every prescriptive rule you come across without a second thought. Following these rules in formal writing and speaking might do you some good—people believe they’re true, remember—but in your everyday communication, you don’t have to worry about splitting infinitives or starting sentences with conjunctions. You can sometimes even let your modifiers dangle.

There are plenty of real rules to worry about, after all. Do you know the proper order of adjectives, for example? You probably wouldn’t be able to recite it off the top of your head, but if you use more than one adjective to describe something, you will intuitively arrange them in a way that just sounds good. You will say that something is big or small before you say which color it is. You will say that something is new or old before you say it’s French or British or Ugandan. There are plenty of rules you use you’re not even aware of. So relax, grammar pedant. Sit back, grab some marshmallows, and enjoy the fire if you think it’s there.

Monday Motivation Hack: Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

About three years ago, I decided to take a huge leap of faith. I sold almost everything I owned, packed my Toyota Sienna from floor to headliner with the stuff too precious to part with, and headed 2,000 miles west across rivers and mountains to an apartment I’d rented sight-unseen in a city I’d only ever driven past on vacation once. It’s the single scariest and best thing I’ve ever done.

Comfort zone annihilation level: expert.

There’s good news, though. You don’t have to make a cross-country move to experience the simultaneous terror and exhilaration of stepping outside your comfort zone. We’re talking about making your Mondays a little more enjoyable here, so baby steps will do.

What is a “comfort zone” and why should you challenge it?

Your comfort zone is the space you inhabit where behaviors, activities, and settings are all familiar and routine. That familiarity becomes a buffer to reduce anxiety and stress. You embrace the status quo because you feel secure there.

Here’s a tip: Status quo is Latin for the state in which. It’s been used since the early eighteenth century to mean “the current state of affairs.” The phrase usually serves as a noun, but it can also function as a phrasal adjective preceding a noun.

If comfort is a good thing (and anyone who’s spent a day in their pajamas working from home knows it is), then why are we encouraged to take risks? The idea of challenging our comfort zones dates back to a 1908 study. It showed that while being reliably comfortable produces steady performance, ramping up the anxiety level just a bit, to a place called “optimal anxiety”, maximizes it.

As tempting as it is to stick with our familiar routines, challenging yourself to push just past that state of relative ease by taking some risks is where you’ll achieve your best performance.

Four Simple Ideas for Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone Today

If you’re ready to edge outside our comfort zone, here are a few ways to start shaking things up . . . just a little.

1 Take a different route to work.

We’re creatures of habit. Many of us follow the same, predictable path to the office each day. We don’t see much of anything new, but at least we know approximately how long the commute will take.

I make a point to take different routes whenever I go somewhere. Google Maps usually gives me a pretty solid estimate of how long the trip will take, and then I add five minutes or so to account for the unexpected. Changing my route keeps things interesting. Bonus: I know at least six different ways to get almost anywhere around my city.

via GIPHY

2 Take a risk-taker out for coffee.

Is there someone in your life—a family member, colleague, or friend—who’s adept at taking risks? Challenge yourself to take that person out for coffee with the goal of asking them about their gutsy lifestyle. Ask them what drives them to color outside the lines, and how they cope with their fears.

Change is unnerving. We all need a little encouragement from time to time. Most risk-takers will enjoy taking a neophyte under their wing and showing them how to stretch their boundaries. When you’re trying to challenge yourself, it’s good to have someone in your corner urging you on.

3 Sign up for a class and learn something creative.

Creativity equals risk-taking. Creative people fail, and the most creative people fail all the time. You don’t think Picasso always painted masterpieces, or that J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series without a single rewrite, do you?

Think of a creative pursuit that’s always fascinated you and take time on your lunch break to look around for classes. Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn how to use your expensive DSLR camera outside of auto mode. Or it could be you’d like to get your hands dirty throwing a ceramic pot. Your thespian side may long for an improv class. Face your fears and dive in!

4 Learn a language.

Learning a new language can be fun, and the process has many cognitive advantages. With apps like Duolingo and Babbel in your corner, it’s also easy. Sure, trying to learn something new can be a little scary, and trying to speak a new language when you’re still struggling to wrap your tongue around foreign sounds is unnerving, but the benefits are clear.

Comfort is overrated.

Looking back on our lives, we rarely regret the risks we’ve taken; we only regret the ones we didn’t. Comfort kills. It leads to apathy and boredom. It strips away our motivation.

Getting outside your comfort zone is not a means to an end, but rather a goal in itself. As soon as you choose to leave your comfort zone, you form a direct friction with life, go towards the pursuit of your dreams, and in short, really start living.

—Ran Zilca for Psychology Today

So, this Monday, go ahead and shake things up a little. There’s no reward without the risk.

How Grammar Influences Legal Interpretations

Grammar is important, but it’s not a matter of life or death. Or is it? How does grammar influence the legal system? Researchers decided to find out by conducting an experiment. Does the wording of the description of a murder affect whether jurors classify a crime as first- or second-degree murder? According to their findings, “legal judgments can be affected by grammatical aspect but [most significantly] limited to temporal dynamics… In addition, findings demonstrate that the influence of grammatical aspect on situation model construction and evaluation is dependent upon the larger linguistic and semantic context.” In other words, grammar plays a part, but the study participants also paid attention to context when making their decisions. Is grammar as significant in real-life legal cases?

For Avondale Lockhart, whether or not he would spend the next ten years of his life in prison came down to a question of grammar. Federal law requires a minimum ten-year sentence for repeat sexual offenders convicted of “aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor or ward.” How would you interpret the phrase? Does “involving a minor or ward” apply only to the part of the sentence immediately preceding it (abusive sexual conduct) or does it apply to all the crimes listed? Lockhart, previously convicted of attempted rape, contended that because his previous crime wasn’t against a minor, the minimum 10-year sentence did not apply to him.

In Canada, a cable television provider and a telecommunications company disputed the import of a single comma in their contract. Bell Aliant, the telephone company, wanted to cancel their contract with Rogers Communication. This is the sentence in question:”This agreement shall be effective from the date it is made and shall continue in force for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.” How do you understand the sentence? Does Bell Aliant have the right to cancel the contract at any time, provided they give one-year notice? Or does the one-year notice apply to cancellations enacted after the first five-year term? The difference amounts to about $900,000 US dollars.

How well can you explain the passive voice and the subjunctive mood? In an article published by the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, law professor Robert C. Farrell observes that “there is widespread unfamiliarity among lawyers and law students with the terminology that describes verb forms.” In most contexts, this doesn’t matter. Native speakers use and understand grammar constructs instinctively, even if they cannot explain why saying something in a certain way is correct. However, in “a small percentage of cases, including some important ones, courts explicitly rely on grammatical terminology to explain their decisions.” If law students aren’t familiar with the classifications of grammar, how will they respond to arguments based on grammatical interpretation? The article highlights one case where grammar played a life-or-death role. In 1995, a jury convicted Michael Kelly Roberts of aggravated premeditated first-degree murder and first-degree felony murder. He received a death sentence for the crimes. Did the jury really have the authority to issue a capital punishment? Notice the passive voice in this phrase from their instructions that defines aggravated first-degree murder: “[when the] murder was committed in the course of, in furtherance of, or in immediate flight from, a robbery … or a kidnapping.” According to Robert’s defense, the use of passive voice mistakenly conveyed the impression that a death penalty could be applied to the accused even if he was not an active or major participant in the illegal events. Because there was another man involved, no one could say who had actually committed the murder.

Are you wondering about the verdicts of the cases mentioned? In the case of Avondale Lockhart, the Court applied the “rule of the last antecedent,” which states that “a limiting clause or phrase . . . should ordinarily be read as modifying only the noun or phrase that it immediately follows.” While the rule can be overruled by other “indica of meaning,” the Court found nothing to indicate that it should be reversed in this case. Lockhart received the minimum ten-year sentence. The Canadian telephone pole contract dilemma reached a resolution when Rogers Communications presented the French version of the same contract. The wording in the French contract was clear enough that the court reversed an earlier decision allowing Bell Aliant to terminate the contract before the end of the five-year term. As for Michael Kelly Roberts, the courts vacated his death sentence and reversed his conviction of first-degree murder. His first-degree felony murder conviction was upheld. How did the rulings match your interpretations of the legal language?