Andrew Brown said:

Can you also you use a-lot with a hyphen like I just did?

acrosstheuniverse said in response to:

Hi Andrew,

I looked into it and I’m thinking that the proper usage would be without the hyphen. However it is often used in combination with other words. For example build-a-lot or mix-a-lot. For formal writing, the hyphen can remind one that there is a space in between as well. Hope this helps!

geof said:

“You should have excepted your offer.” I had to go to my Oxford dictionary for this one. I have never seen nor used “except” as a verb, but you can.

acrosstheuniverse said:

Yes, it is very uncommon. The word almost functions like “exempt” in that sentence. We have other ways of saying it, such as “you should have rejected your offer” which makes it easier to understand and distinguish.

derekeb said:

thanks for the refresher course. always good to review these rules from time to time.

RobotGrrl said:

Another idea when trying to use ‘a lot’ is to simply use a synonym. Chances are, you’ll get that one right and it will sound more profound! ^_ I use this technique in abundance. (<—synonym for a lot, hehe)

egocentrique said:

Im hot, didn’t you know? HOT HOT HOT

arjun7391 said:

YA THESE R COMMON ERRORS…. do keep on chnging words>>>

Angel_ said:

I usually do mess up with these words! But your thing really helped…

manu_urfriend2000 said in response to:

no dude you cant hypen is only ued with words which have a combined meaning usually

acrosstheuniverse said in response to:

Hey Arjun,

Check out our new lesson on Mistaken B Words for a list of 5 more words that commonly show some errors.

satrohit said:

are their any more topics to be noted on ‘A’?

acrosstheuniverse said in response to:

If I’m correct in guessing what you mean by topics, then you mean other problems that people may have with other associated “A” letters. There are many tricky words in the dictionary to look over, and to cover them all would be crazy! But these five I have picked because they seem to be the most often confused.

More topics or common problems that I can think of off the top of my head would be:

• all ready vs. already

All ready means everything is complete and ready to go, whereas already is used as an adjective such as “the box is already there” where as all ready would be used as a verb connection like “the box was all ready”.

• associate, allocation, alleviate, alienate, alliteration, apposition

All of these words have some confusion in spelling and usage.

Hope these little tips help!

poojakarki said in response to:

Really good Points

sumit270 said in response to:

I agree

pappu bhai said:

what is the difference between something divided by zero and zero dived by zero although both connotes an infinite value.

acrosstheuniverse said in response to:

You may be interested in the Mathematics Community . Feel free to start a discussion to help you and others understand such math tricks as zeros.

dddd said in response to:

U are hot Iam cool.

snigdha_sinha said:

hyphen is only used in words which have two words but act as a single meaning.

hcraig said:

Here’s another one to add:

Arcane: known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure Example: Sarah knew a lot about Sanskrit grammar and other arcane matters

Archaic: of, relating to, or characteristic of an earlier or more primitive time Example: Ryan’s sense of chivalry is rather archaic!

gauravjain26 said:

I have a doubt related to a vs an.

What i used to believe is:-
letter followed by a or an is not the determinant of the choice, but what actually counts is the sound.
like an honest person is having ‘an’ cause of the fact that while pronouncing ‘honest’, ‘h’ is silent, giving it a pronunciation of – Onest. (a vowel sound)

What you think?

sowrabh said:

ya i think that’s right.for example it is wrong to say ‘an European’,despite ‘European’ starting with an ‘e’ .

chandra_avinash said in response to:

You are correct! While pronouncing European – it’s the “Yoo” syllable that comes first – that doesn’t start with a vowel and therefore it’s incorrect to say “an European”.

pratyushnalam said:

very helpful

sowrabh said in response to:

anything divide by zero is infinite whereas o divided by o is undefined .the difference is that while anything by zero cannot be calculated,the limiting value for 0 by 0 can be found out.this is done in differential calculus.to explain limiting value let us take the equation y=(xsquared-9)divided by (x-3),in this fraction if we substitute value of x as 3 directly we get 0 divided by0,but if we were to simply the fraction first to (x+3)then substitute the value of x as 3,we get 3+3= 6.

oLahav said in response to:

I believe you’re right in this point. Like a lot of things in English, the “rule”, which states that an is always followed by a vowel, is not very strict. The sound of a word can help you determine whether a or an is more appropriate in most times, but when you’re not sure of how to pronounce a word things can get confusing. Luckily, we have grammar-check in Word that helps clear things up.

On SATs and GMAT and other tests, minor grammar errors like a/an are usually not a reason for getting a significantly lower score. As a matter of fact, some markers miss them altogether (they’re really small and hard to catch). That’s a good thing.