Monday | Analytical Grammar

HISTORIC or HISTORICAL?

May 1, 2017 DGG, LESSON

HISTORIC: “famous or important in history,” as in a historic occasion

HISTORICAL: “concerning history or past events,” as in historical evidence

Thus, a “historic” event is one that was very important, whereas a “historical” event is something that happened in the past.

Buildings, villages, districts, and landmarks deemed important are often described as “historic” because they are significant to the past (in addition to being of or related to history.)

Societies dedicated to recognizing and preserving these things are called” historical” societies because they are concerned with documenting past history but not momentous in themselves.

The words were originally synonyms—with historic developing second as a shortened historical—but they began to diverge in meaning around the 18th century, and the difference has solidified over time. They are still occasionally mixed up, but the differentiation is now so well-established that using one in place of the other is likely to strike many English speakers as wrong.

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i.e. OR e.g.

April 24, 2017 DGG, LESSON

I.E. is often mixed up with E.G. or considered interchangeable, but they are not! Here’s what they mean and how to avoid mixing them up in the future:

“i.e.” is Latin for “id est,” meaning “that is.”
“e.g.” is Latin for “exempli gratia,” meaning “for example.”

Use “i.e.” when you want to give further explanation for something.
Use “e.g.” when you want to give a few examples but not a complete list.

i.e. = (think: “in essence”)
e.g = (think: “examples given”)

STATIONARY and STATIONERY

April 17, 2017 DGG, LESSON

STATIONARY: an adjective or adverb, meaning “not moving”, “fixed in one place”, “still.”
STATIONERY: a noun, meaning “paper, for letter writing or note-taking”

Ex: I use a stationary bike for exercise. (adj)
Ex: The hostages were ordered to remain stationary. (adv)
Ex: The girl received stationery and a special pen for her birthday gift.

Stationary comes from the Latin “stationarius,” meaning “belonging to a military station,” while “stationery” comes from the Middle English noun “staciouner,” meaning bookseller.

TIP: “StationAry” means “still”, and when you are stationAry, you are often “stAnding.” “StationAry” also functions as an Adjective or Adverb (think of the As). In contrast, “StationEry” is papEr.

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PASSED and PAST

April 10, 2017 DGG, LESSON

PASSED is the past tense and past participle of the verb “to pass.” It means to move on or ahead; proceed. It can function as both a transitive and intransitive verb. For example,

“The car passed me in the left lane.”
“I unknowingly passed by her in the crowd.”

PAST is (1) a noun meaning the time before the present, and (2) an adjective meaning “completed,” “finished,” and “no longer in existence;” It can also function as an adverb and preposition, but NOT A VERB.

The verb TO PASS usually implies movement of some sort and can sometimes cause confusion because it often means to move past. For example, “The hunter passed by the deer without even seeing it.”

Some people will mistakenly write a sentence like this as, “The hunter past by the deer without even seeing it.”

In doing so, people confuse PASSED (verb) with PAST (not a verb). If you take a look at the second sentence, you will notice that there is no verb for the subject hunter because past is not a verb; thus the sentence is incorrect.

A good way to tell which word to use in a sentence like this is to rewrite it using the present tense and see if it makes sense. For example, you would rewrite the above sentence as follows, “The hunter passes by the deer without even seeing it.” See how it makes sense? Thus, the word “passed” is correct.

Another rule to keep track of troublesome sentences like this is that if *a verb indicating motion* is *already* in your sentence, you will always couple it with PAST, not passed. For example,

“He passed us by.” BUT” He sailed past us/He flew past us/He ran past us.

TIP: The best way to keep track of the differences between these two words is by remembering that PASSED generally deals with movement and PAST generally deals with time. If you can remember the phrase “PAST TIME” (like pastime), you should be good to go!