What do you think about gender-neutral pronouns? Take our weekly poll!

Gender-neutral pronouns are nouns that stand in for one’s name but do not reflect the sex of the referenced person. In contrast, he, she, him, her, his, hers, etc. are gendered pronouns, reflecting the sex of the referenced person. Many gender activists and even some linguists argue that plural gender-neutral pronouns — like they, them, their — are not acceptable substitutes for the unwieldy ‘his or her’, ‘he or she’ and ‘himself or herself’ constructions. There have been some attempts to create gender-neutral pronouns. But do we need them? Tell us what you think in the comments!

Do you want more polls? You can take last week’s poll.

 

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June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month. Celebrate human rights, tolerance, and equality with us throughout the month! #PrideMonth

Speak Like a Scientist: 4 Words to Try Using Differently

Scientific writing is known for its precision and accuracy. Other forms of written and spoken communication, however, are often filled with confusing and ambiguous vocabulary. Here are four words we’ve poached from the scientific world that should be adopted in non-scientific communication.

Abstract In scientific writing, an abstract summarizes the key points of a presentation or paper. Written scientific research is often lengthy, so an abstract serves as a way to let the reader know what he or she is getting into up front. Most people use the word “abstract” to describe art or theoretical concepts. But if you use its scientific meaning, whether you’re writing a long email or a detailed list of directions, you can create an abstract that summarizes the key points.

Volume In our everyday lives, we often talk about volume in terms of noise. In science, volume is the amount of space occupied by an object measured in three dimensions, expressed in cubic units. Try using “volume” as a more specific way of talking about how much space is available for or taken up by an object.

Hypothesis In the scientific world, a hypothesis is a supposition made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. In our everyday conversation, the word “hypothesis” can often be substituted for the word “idea.” For example, if you’re planning a bake sale and you base your sales projections on how many cookies and cupcakes you sold last year, you might say you have “an idea” of how much money you’ll make this year. Since your idea is based on evidence from the year before, it’s actually a hypothesis.

Conductor A train conductor, a symphony conductor…we know conductors as people who orchestrate actions. In the scientific world, a conductor is a material or an object that conducts heat, electricity, light, or sound. For example, the cord between your lamp and the wall is a conductor of electricity. (Interestingly, the plastic or rubber casing around the wire acts as an insulator and the internal metal wiring is the strict conductor.) Once you know what a conductor is, you’ll start seeing them everywhere! Use this word from the science world to identify the conductors around you — even in a literary sense!

What other scientific words should be adopted for everyday use? Share your suggestions in the comments!

Can You Define These Tricky Vocabulary Words?

English can be tough, but what part of grammar is the most confusing?

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.

“Barking up the wrong tree” and Other Funny Idioms

Have you heard the expression “barking up the wrong tree?” According to North Carolina State University, there are 23,000 different kinds of trees. What type of tree is incorrect? Idioms can be puzzling, but perhaps less so when you learn more about the phrases. Let’s delve into six interesting idiomatic expressions.

Barking up the wrong tree

Hunters sometimes use scent hounds to locate and pursue animals. When the dogs trap, catch, or even kill an animal, they bark to alert their masters. Certain quarry, such as squirrels and raccoons, climb trees to escape. Occasionally, dogs lose the scent or become confused by an old scent trail. The animal is long gone, but the mistaken dogs circle a tree where they believe it to be hiding and sound the alarm. The fruitless barking of the dogs represents pursuing a mistaken or misguided course.

Brenda thinks she’s going to make money on that shady investment scheme, but she’s barking up the wrong tree!

Sick as a dog

Speaking of scent hounds, was it a touch of congestion that befouled their hunting expedition? Why are dogs associated with illness in the phrase “as sick as a dog?” Canines don’t get sick more often or with more severity than other animals. Disappointingly, the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs reports only that the first recorded mention of the simile was in 1705 and adds, “why a dog should be viewed as particularly sick remains unclear.”

After cleaning Fido’s vomit from the carpet, I was the one who felt as sick as a dog.

Smell a rat

A rat is a slang term for an untrustworthy person. If you “smell a rat,” you suspect something is wrong or that a person has been disloyal. Skunks are famously stinky, but live rats aren’t heavily malodorous. However, many homeowners have located dead rodents in the walls or floors of their homes by following a stench.

The uniformed man claimed to be a home inspector, but I smelled a rat.

Curiosity killed the cat

In Ben Jonson’s play, Every Man in His Humour, the phrase “care will kill a cat” appears. Care (as in worry), not curiosity, is the supposed source of danger in this earlier expression from the 1500s. In 1909, O. Henry was the first to use “curiosity killed the cat.” Nowadays, you would say it to warn someone not to meddle in an affair that doesn’t concern them or to explain why adverse consequences result from being overly inquisitive.

The cops arrested George because he was snooping around the scene of the crime. Curiosity killed the cat!

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch

Despite a mother hen’s best efforts, there are predators—even curious cats—that would devour a tasty egg. Temperature changes and other factors can also affect an embryo, so you can’t be sure of an egg’s viability until it hatches. Written around the sixth century BC, the story collection known as Aesop’s Fables included the tale of a milkmaid carrying milk on her head. She fantasizes about selling butter and cream to buy eggs. The dream of hatching and selling the chickens is so real that she tosses her hair in anticipation of the young admirers who will check out her newly purchased dresses. She drops the milk, illustrating that you can’t ascertain the result of a hypothetical situation in advance.

I am expecting a raise this quarter, but I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch.

Every cloud has a silver lining

“There does a sable cloud / Turn forth her silver lining on the night, / And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.” In the 1600s, John Milton penned these words in Comus: A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle. Captivated with the pretty verse, many writers wrote about “Milton’s clouds” with silver linings. In time, people applied the idea to dark situations in life. In time, you often find that something good can follow unpleasant circumstances.

Ramona’s grandmother congratulated her on how much she improved her reading the summer that she broke her leg: “See! Every cloud has a silver lining.”

If you try to find literal meaning in idioms, you can end up as disappointed as dogs baying at the bottom of an empty tree. Many idioms, like the ones above, have fascinating origins. What expressions would you like to research next?

Does the U.S. need to invest more in English education?

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.

All the Sports Words Only Americans Use

To many Americans, Super Bowl Sunday is synonymous with junk food, cheering, the best new commercials, and possibly the sensation of winning (or losing) a war. People in other countries sometimes wonder if the prize is a very large bowl.

It’s not just the fascination with football that befuddles non-Americans—it’s the very words we use to describe it. That goes for sports-related words in general, especially when we compare certain terms in American English to their British counterparts.

In other words, a Yank may queue for gridiron and go barmy in the stands as if he’s got bugger all to do but watch the match, but lads from Blighty think that’s bollocks. And if you don’t know what that means, we’ve got you covered with this handy list of American sports words and their British equivalents. If you just can’t get enough football (or if you secretly think words are more interesting), this is the list to get you through the sports event of the year.

General Sports Words

Sports vs. Sport That’s right: the language barrier starts with what to call the whole category of athletics. Americans watch sports. British folk watch sport. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

Game vs. Match The Super Bowl is also called “the Big Game.” We can only assume a British championship would be called “the Oversized Match.”

Team vs. Club “My favorite football team is the Raiders,” says an Oaklander. “My football club is the Gunners,” says a Brit rooting for Arsenal (though someone from a rival team might call them “Gooners”). Another British football quirk: many fans call their teams—er, clubs—by nicknames rather than their official titles.

Defense vs. Defence It means the same thing: the opposite of “offense” (or if you’re in the U.K., “offence”). British English just spells some things differently. (Want more British spelling variations? Learn about canceled vs. cancelled, favorite vs. favourite, and other ways our Englishes are different.)

Zero-zero vs. Nil-nil If both teams have good defense, the score might be zero-zero. But if they have good defence (note the British spelling), then the score will be nil-nil.

Shutout vs. Clean Sheet In the U.S., a “shutout” is a game in which one team doesn’t score at all. In the U.K., the goalkeeper (not goalie) is said to “keep a clean sheet” if he’s kept the other team’s score at nil.

Tie vs. Draw It could be zero-zero, nil-nil, or ten-ten (no changes there); if both teams have the same score at the end of the game, that’s called a “tie” for Americans and a “draw” for the British.

Field vs. Pitch The thing you play on, if you’re playing in the U.S., is a field. In the U.K., it’s a pitch—not to be confused by what a baseball pitcher (bowler) throws at a batter (batsman) in the game of baseball (that one’s still baseball, though Brits prefer cricket).

Sideline vs. Touchline Either type of line designates the boundaries of the field. Idiom bonus: if a player is unable to play, you can say “that player has been sidelined.”

Football Words

Soccer vs. Football When Americans hear “football,” we think tackling, touchdowns, oval ball with pointy ends. When Brits (or really, anyone not from the U.S.) hear “football”—sometimes abbreviated to “footy”—they think fancy footwork, goals, round ball. In other words, what Americans call “soccer.” Fancy that.

Pig skin This word has no British equivalent. In American football, it’s what you call the actual ball. If you didn’t know that, “tossing around the pigskin” probably sounds pretty gross.

Gridiron For Americans, a gridiron is the field for football—so called because of the parallel lines marking up the grass. But British folks sometimes use the word “gridiron” to refer to the sport of American football as a whole. It rolls off the tongue nicer than “American football,” after all.

In the Six In soccer, some American commentators say “in the six” to refer to action in the six-yard box—that is, the area immediately around the goal. Not to be confused with…

Pick Six This term is specific to American football—that is, gridiron. It’s what happens when a quarterback throws an interception (or “pick”) and the defensive player throws it back, scoring a touchdown worth six points.

On Frame This is a football Britishism meaning “on target”—for example, a kick straight into the goal would be “on frame.” Americans don’t get it: in the words of one Florida-based soccer blogger, “For me it sounds like hitting the post or the crossbar, I wouldn’t think it was a shot on target.”

Upper 90 vs. Top Corner In soccer, this term refers to the top portion of the goal. American commentators refer to the right angle as the “upper 90” (as in, 90 degrees), and British ones content themselves with describing the general region.

Sporting Equipment

Uniform vs. Kit What you wear to show what team (or club) you’re on.

Cleats vs. Boots (studs) These are what you put on your feet to run in turf. Americans refer to the shoes in general as “cleats,” but the actual cleats are the grippy bits on the sole. The grippy bits in British English: “studs.”

Sneakers vs. Trainers More on footwear: a good running shoe without the studs (or grippy bits) is called a “sneaker” in the U.S.; the British aren’t as big on sneaking, so for them, they’re called “trainers.”

Mouth Guard vs. Gum Shield You’d think that teeth would be more injury-prone. But if you’re in Britain, you protect your gums.

Words for the Fans

Remember this sentence? “A Yank may queue for gridiron and go barmy in the stands as if he’s got bugger all to do but watch the match, but lads from Blighty think that’s bollocks.” Let’s finish translating the Britishisms.

Yank An American. Think “Yankee.”

Queue This is what you stand in while you’re waiting to get into the stadium. Or the bathroom. Or if you want fries and beer (or at a British match, chips and a pint).

Barmy “Crazy.” Not necessarily certifiably insane, just a bit on the loony side.

Bugger All This translates to “nothing at all,” but be careful where you say it: it’s a bit vulgar as a phrase. You’re probably ok saying it on the soccer pitch, though.

Lads Let’s not stereotype: there are plenty of lasses (or girls) who are just as excited about a good day of sport. But say you’re with a group of fellows. They’d be dudes, guys, or bros in the U.S., but in the U.K., you’d call them “my lads.”

Blighty An affectionate term for England herself. The term showed up as a sign of patriotism and homesickness at the time of Victorian rule in India and grew in popularity in the early twentieth century, with songs like “Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty” causing a tear in many a homesick soldier’s eye.

Bollocks “Nonsense!”

A lot of these words might sound like bollocks to American ears, but if you ever find yourself at a footy match in the U.K.—or are trying to explain gridiron to a lad from Blighty—now you’ll know where to start. Let the games begin!