6 Nick Claussen blog posts are equal to 24 regular posts!
I am often confused about how to capitalize titles.
I understand the AP Style rules for when to italicize titles or put them in quotes, but the actual guidelines for which words to capitalize have always confused me. Continue reading “Rules for Capitalizing the Titles Seem Confusing and/or Stupid to Me”
Dates can be painful and confusing, yet also wonderful, memorable or dry.
I was thinking about dates the other day while looking at my calendar, and began to ponder the aspects of them that I like and dislike. Continue reading “It’s fun to elucidate on ‘date’ and ‘ale’ words”
One interesting and occasionally frustrating part of the English language involves words that sound exactly the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings.
These words are homophones and according to the people over there, they’re their favorite types of words.
Personally I’d like to carve these words into stone, but would wood be better? I recently noticed that one family of words seems to have won the homophones championship, and I asked myself, “Is this something people want to know? No or yes?” Continue reading “Ore or oar? A family of words with the same sounds but different spellings”
I often hear people say that a decision is a no-brainer, meaning it is relatively simple choice.
That’s fine, but by the same logic I think we should say that a decision that requires some thought is a “brainer.”
“I am not sure what type of bread to buy; this sure is a brainer,” one might say, since bread purchasing is a difficult task. Continue reading “This post about no-words like no-brainer and no-doubter is a no-thinker”
I have never understood the point of “near-rhymes” in songs.
Whether they are in church hymns, songs we sang back in school or other times when I have been singing somewhat on key, I have always been a little confused about them. Continue reading “Near-rhymes in songs are near-annoying”
It’s funny how changing one letter can make a huge difference in how a word is pronounced in the English language. It tends to make the language confusing, but also fun to think about.
Continue reading “Although I thought this through thoroughly, I may have erred writing it ere today”
It must be difficult to moderate even the moderate portions of the English language.
The language is tricky to read because words often have different meanings and sounds between the first and second times they are read. This tends to make even some of our most distinguished words difficult to distinguish. Often, the buffet of pronunciations buffets and torments me.
If reading content makes you content, then you should know that homographs are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings, while heteronyms are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings and pronunciations.
I was thinking about this while studying my profile in the mirror today for a minute, so I decided to profile a few of these words in a short (some might even say minute) story. I have yet to perfect my writing skills so that I can write the perfect story, though, so I hope that my subject matter here does not subject you to boredom. Continue reading “Heteronyms and homographs prove that you can lead a horse to a can of water, but you can’t make him use a lead pencil”
Holidays can be very enjoyable, but they can also be extremely confusing.
It’s wonderful to honor parents, heroes, fools and plenty of other people with these special days, but the lack of clarity about how to spell the names and whether or not to use apostrophes drives me crazy. Continue reading “If we had a holiday to celebrate punctuation marks, would it be Apostrophe’s Day or Apostrophes Day?”
Around this time of year, we often hear the Kay Jewelers slogan, “Every Kiss Begins With K” which is either a clever wordplay or a scourge on our senses that is repeated over and over on the television, radio and internet while driving everyone crazy.
I have spent way too much time thinking about the slogan, and have come up with several salient and/or stupid points. Continue reading “If Every Kiss Begins With K, then should Every Book Begin With Boo? Important questions and comments about the jewelry commercial”
While many people take the word “take” for granted, it is a surprisingly complex and confusing word that requires you to take great care.
For example, did you know that take is both a verb and a noun?
Did you also know that people constantly are using the word incorrectly?
And finally, can you believe that most people don’t thank me when I correct them?
All in all, these discussions require a lot of give-and-take, so I will give you my take on take. Continue reading “You can take your take anywhere, but you can’t take it here”
nickclaussen.com 