Archive for the ‘Vocabulary’ Category

Can you put each of these collective nouns in the right sentence below? You must use each noun once only.

pack | herd | fleet | suite | audience | crowd

1. The farmer moved his __________ of cows to higher ground to avoid the flood.

2. The President and his staff had a __________ of rooms on the top floor.

3. After the concert the __________ clapped loudly.

4. It was difficult to move because there were so many people in the __________.

5. Which navy has the biggest __________ in the world?

6. The casino uses a new __________ of cards for each game.

See Comments for answers.

Advice is a noun:

• He did not accept my advice.

Advise is a verb:

• The doctor advised her to stop work.

A stationer sells stationery (writing paper, envelopes and other office materials).

• You’ll find some envelopes in the stationery cupboard.

Stationary is an adjective meaning “not moving”.

• The car hit a stationary bus.

In American English “practice” is a verb and a noun:

I need more practice before I do the exam. Can I practice my English with you?

In British English “practice” is a noun and the verb is “practise”:

I need more practice before I do the exam. Can I practise my English with you?

Normally, every syllable in English must have at least one vowel (or vowel sound). So it’s quite surprising to think that there are words with 5 or more consonants in a row.

Here are a few words with 5-letter consonant strings:

BIRTHPLACE, BREASTSTROKE, DOWNSTREAM, EIGHTHS, MATCHSTICK, NIGHTCLOTHES, NIGHTCLUB, NIGHTDRESS, STRENGTHS, THOUSANDTHS

Here are two words with 6 consonants in a row:

CATCHPHRASE, KNIGHTSBRIDGE

Can you think of any more? There are quite a few.

Actually, it’s very easy.

It’s is always short for “it is” or “it has”.

• It is snowing. It’s snowing.
• It has finished. It’s finished.
• It has got 6 wheels. It’s got 6 wheels.

Its means “belonging to it” and is a possessive pronoun like “his”.

• Turn the box on its side,
• Did you see its registration number?
• Its atmosphere is romantic.

Based on evidence from the billion-word Oxford English Corpus, Oxford have identified the hundred commonest English words found in writing globally:

1. the
2. be
3. to
4. of
5. and
6. a
7. in
(more…)

If we take the word DOG and change its letters around we can get GOD. That is an anagram - a word (or phrase) made by mixing up the letters of another word (or phrase). The DOG = GOD example is a very simple anagram. Another example would be CINEMA = ICEMAN.

But the cleverest anagrams are much more complicated and often have some relationship to the original words:

Astronomer = Moon starer
Debit card = Bad credit
Schoolmaster = The classroom
Halley’s Comet = Shall yet come
Punishment = Nine Thumps

Here’s an economical word It means two mutually-exclusive thing at once:

1. twice a month

2. once every two months

In fact, the meaning of “bimonthly” (and similar words like “biweekly” and “biyearly”) is ambiguous. The best way to be unambiguous is to use alternative expressions such as “twice a month” or “every two months”.