Nouns

“Download it for free.”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Idioms, Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs

My wife saw this the other day on Oprah.com.

Problem:
“For free” is an informal idiom that bothers many readers.

Explanation:
For fun, I checked Google for the idiom “for free” (with the quotation marks) and got about 348,000,000 matches. Wow!

Many readers are bothered by the “for free” idiom because the word “for” is a preposition, prepositions should be followed by nouns or pronouns, and the word “free” is neither a noun nor a pronoun.

The word “free” is either a verb or an adjective. Some use the word “free” as an adverb — as in “running free” — but the correct way to make “free” into an adverb is to add the letters L-Y to the end — as in “running freely”.

One of the definitions of the word “free” as an adjective is without charge, cost, or payment — as in “free nachos with every beer purchased this evening”.

This gives us our solution, given that any preposition — such as “for” — should not be followed by an adjective — such as “free”.

Solution:
“Download it without charge.”

“Scallion” vs. “Scallop”

Nouns, Versus

At the risk of sounding like the celebrity who did not know whether “Chicken of the Sea”-brand tuna was chicken or fish, today’s post is not a deep exploration into grammar but instead is a simple review of the definitions of two food words that sound somewhat alike and are spelled almost identically.

Problem:
The distinction between “scallion” and “scallop” has been a long-time problem for me, probably because I don’t eat one and rarely eat the other.

Explanation:
A “scallion” — spelled S-C-A-L-L-I-O-N — is a leek, a shallot, or any green onion. The noun “scallion” dates back to the early fourteenth century and is named after the onion of Ascalon — spelled A-S-C-A-L-O-N — which is a seaport of Palestine.

A “scallop” — spelled S-C-A-L-L-O-P — is a bivalve molusk that swims by clapping its shell valves together. The noun “scallop” dates back to the late fourteenth century and is related to the word for a thin slice of meat.

Solution:
Think “onion” when seeing the noun “scallion” with the mnemonic that both words end in I-O-N. Think seafood when seeing the noun “scallop” with the mnemonic that it does NOT rhyme with the word “onion” and therefore is NOT an onion.

“… all of which I use alot, …”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Nouns, Verbs

I saw this in a comment at EngadgetMobile.com.

Problem:
The word “alot” — spelled A-L-O-T — is a nonsense word.

Explanation:
The comment writer was referring to cell-phone functions that he uses often, not a little.

So he should have written “a lot” — spelled A-space-L-O-T — instead.

The two-word, adverbial phrase “a lot” means to a great extent or degree.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks to avoid hyphenated forms) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “a lot” — with a space after the letter “a” — 640,000,000 matches
  • “alot” — with no space — 129,000,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the adverbial phrase correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 4.96-to-1, which is dreadful.

Note: The adverbial phrase “a lot” should not be confused with the verb “allot” — spelled A-L-L-O-T — which means to apportion, to appropriate, or to dedicate.

Solution:
“… all of which I use a lot, …” — with a space between the indirect article “a” and the noun “lot”