Words for Thinking, Learning, and Communication
A speaker implies. A listener infers. Those two verbs describe opposite ends of the same exchange, and mixing them up is one of the most common errors in careful English, common enough that editors have been complaining about it for a century. The larger point is that words about thinking and communicating are not a […]
Words for Rules and Authority
Official language runs on a small set of verbs. A rule gets created, applied, lifted for certain people, or wiped out entirely, and English has a separate word for each of those actions. Abolish, authorize, compel, exempt, mandate, and revoke are the six that do most of the work. They are easy to confuse because […]