Fun Blogging

There is quite a bit of confusion among readers about the words, 'born' and 'borne', both past participle form of 'bear'. Let me clarify in this post. To mean 'to give birth to a child', we associate the term, 'bear'. But this word has a lot of other meanings, such as 'tolerate', 'to carry something', 'to support something or somebody', 'produce something', etc. These examples will show you the use: She thought she could bear her boyfriend's child. His class couldn't bear his lousy lectures anymore. My apple trees bear the best of apples in the entire state. The word 'bear' has two past participle forms, associated with 'to give birth' meaning. They are 'born' and 'borne'. These two should be associated with two different meanings as below. 1. Use 'born' if you are talking about the child, in a passive sense. My father was born in the middle of the last century. Adolf...

Despite their difference in meanings, albumen and albumin are two words still used wrongly by many people. Let's clarify this confusion in this post. The word historically used to refer to the white part of the egg is albumen. This arises from a Latin word, albus , which means 'white'. In Latin, you will also find the word albûmen to mean 'egg white', with a pronunciation mark on top of 'u', which is called a macron diacritic . The word albumin is an entirely English word, which has no connection to Latin word above (at least directly). It refers to a water-soluble protein found in many plant and animal tissues, including and prominently in the egg white or albumen. That's how it gets its name. The suffix, 'in' is used to indicate that the protein is a neutral chemical compound.

In the Western calendar, we have three distinct forms for talking about epochs, AD, BC, and CE. All three are used with reference to the time of Jesus. BC is the time before Jesus was born, and hence expands to "before Christ". While "before Christ" is pretty meaningful, many expanded AD naturally as "After Death". But this isn't true. AD stands actually for a Latin phrase, "anno Domini", which translates as "in the year of the Lord". About one and a half millennia ago, a Romanian priest and scholar, St. Dionysius Exiguus caused this convention. One more thing you need to notice is AD is usually prefixed to the year, while BC is suffixed, as in: AD 500, and 43 BC. In BC epoch, the years are decreasing, so 54 BC comes before 3 BC. It decreases to 1 BC, and then starts the AD epoch, with AD 1. Another convention to talk about the current epoch, called the Common Era, CE, was started by atheistic scholars and writers who felt that talk...

"Oh! My fiancée is so cute!" shouted the woman. Now, if you know correct English and you read this sentence, you will think that the woman is a lesbian. There's no possible explanation for having a fiancée, who is a betrothed woman . The word for an engaged man is fiancé, without that 'e' at the end. So the first sentence should be, "Oh! My fiancé is so cute!" Fiancé: Betrothed man Fiancée: Betrothed woman Both these words are pronounced, 'fee on say'. The plural forms are simply 'fiancés' and 'fiancées'. Don't forget the acute diacritic sign above the letter, 'e'. Etymology These words originate from the French verb, 'fiancer', which means 'to become engaged'. So, you see, both these words originate from the French language, in which they are still strongly in use.

Here is a list of some terribly long words in English language that have existed at some point of time in history. Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters): Name of a lung disease. It is supposed to be a disease that is caused by the inhalation of fine silica dust. Osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary (51) and Osteosarchaematosplanchnochondroneuromuelous (44): Thomas Love Peacock invented both these words through his satirical novel Headlong Hall. The words mean 'related to human features like bone, flesh, organs, etc.' Praetertranssubstantiationalistically (37): A word first used by Mark McShane. Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic (52): First used by Dr Edward Strother. Floccinaucinihilipilification (29): Describing something as 'worthless'. Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30): A gene mutation disease. Antidisestablishmentarianism (28): A political situation in Britain in the late 19th century. Honorific...