Author Archives: Connie Fisher

Border and boarder are homophones (words that sound alike but are spelled differently) and easily confused words. Boarder Boarder is a noun which means someone living in a house and consuming meals in exchange for rent. It is synonymous with a roomer or tenant. Taking… continue reading

A fellow student in my high school English class who grew up in the UK hearing the word adaption used when referring to radio and television programs based on books asked a question in class one day that stuck with me. Where did the word… continue reading

Formerly and formally are two easily confused words. Spell-check applications of most word processing programs would not find a slip-up of these two words. Spell-check looks for words that aren’t in its dictionary or words that resemble words in its dictionary but are likely spelled… continue reading

Is it Favorite or Favourite?  Why are there two spellings?  Well, it’s been said that the United States and the United Kingdom are two countries separated by a common language. Even though English is the most commonly used language in both countries, a distinction is… continue reading

The English language can be complicated at times, especially if you are not a native speaker, and your original language has little in common with English.  To make matters worst, there is a myriad of words that are separated in spelling by just one letter,… continue reading

Merriam-Webster raised the tempers of pompous grammarians last week when it affirmed the linguistic authenticity of “irregardless.” The definition of the word, when reading it, seems to be: without without regard. “The word Irregardless is included in our dictionary because it’s been in widespread and… continue reading