play video drive safe ly
Usage Notes

Drive Safe: In Praise of Flat Adverbs

You don't have to end all your adverbs in -ly to talk right.


Up next

play video drive safe ly
Drive Safe: In Praise of Flat Adverbs

 

You don't have to end all your adverbs in -ly to talk right.

play semantic bleaching text on white background
What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'?

 

How 'literally' can mean "figuratively"

play video title attorney generals
Is It 'Attorney Generals' Or 'Attorneys General'?

 

'Poets laureate'? 'Court-martials'? The curious history of postpositive adjectives in English.

play video soup vs soop
An Abbreviated History of American English Spelling

 

Soop, wimmen, and headake did not make the cut

play video websters video of 1864
Webster's Dictionary of 1864

 

The landmark edition that transformed the way dictionaries are made.

play video ghost words
How a Ghost Word Appeared in the Dictionary

 

An imaginary word that snuck into the dictionary

play video how a word gets into the dicionary
How a Word Gets into the Dictionary

 

What our editors are looking for when they enter words in Merriam-Webster.