Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction to the Weedy Traits of the English Language
- Our Lexical Weeds: the World of Jargon, Slang and Euphemism
- More Lexical Weeds: Word Origins and Meaning Shifts
- Our Grammatical Weeds
- Weeds in Our Sounds and Spelling
- The Truly Nasty Weeds of the English Language?
- W(h)ither Our Weeds?
- Bibliography
- List of Interesting Words
Our Grammatical Weeds
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction to the Weedy Traits of the English Language
- Our Lexical Weeds: the World of Jargon, Slang and Euphemism
- More Lexical Weeds: Word Origins and Meaning Shifts
- Our Grammatical Weeds
- Weeds in Our Sounds and Spelling
- The Truly Nasty Weeds of the English Language?
- W(h)ither Our Weeds?
- Bibliography
- List of Interesting Words
Summary
There is an area I have been avoiding for months. Infested with masses of rope twitchgrass and spreading rapidly too. Preparations have been made. I have brought four punnets of African marigolds, the big, vigorous ones called Crackerjack. After grunting and digging my way through the root-ridden soil and forking out as much of the twitch as possible, I squirt holes with the hose jet … A few minutes later, when the water has soaked away, in go the marigold seedlings, the great twitch destroyer, five to the square metre. I could swear I hear the twitch roots which still remain, squeaking with fear. What a lovely way to start the summer.
Peter Cundall Seasonal Tasks for the Practical Australian Gardener 1989To dive deep or to dive deeply?
Adverbs form one of the motliest groups of all our parts of speech. Their name ‘adverb’ suggests something quite straightforward – adverbs are those words we use to modify verbs. In something like he drove slowly, slowly modifies the verb drive. But adverbs can also be used to modify other modifiers. In he drove unbelievably slowly, unbelievably modifies the adverb slowly. In an unbelievably slow driver, unbelievably modifies the adjective slow. Then there are those adverbs that don't seem to modify anything at all. In an example such as Frankly, he's a twit, the adverb frankly provides more a comment on what's contained in the rest of the sentence.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Weeds in the Garden of WordsFurther Observations on the Tangled History of the English Language, pp. 84 - 119Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005