Big can get bigger and even become the biggest, loud can get louder and even become the loudest, but why can’t perfect get perfecter or the perfectist? Because, my dear readers, there are gradable adjectives and non-gradable adjectives (otherwise known as absolutes.)

Learning about these gradable and non-gradable adjectives will exponentially help your grammar. You will begin to understand why one can’t be very unique or more correct, or the most unique or most correct. Think about it like this. Being correct is absolute, you’re either correct or you aren’t, right? You may disagree because in reality people can be correct within the context of a particular area, but overall incorrect in the grander (that is a gradable adjective by the way) scheme of things.

In light of this, there is some room in the middle by way of modifiers. Modifiers allow us to say things like almost impossible or quite excellent. We know that impossible is absolute, but nearly impossible implies a slight possibility.

A trick to master this area of English grammar is to think of words as being able to grow or being static. For example, something can be hotter than something else, so hot is gradable – hot, hotter, hottest. But if something is impossible it just is, it is static and remains final. Similarly, if something is excellent, it is already at its best. It is static, final.

Have a go at trying to determine whether the following adjectives are gradable or non-gradable. If you think a word is gradable then expand on it as follows: hot, hotter, hottest. If the adjective is non-gradable then leave it as it is. Answers are below, too. No peeking!

1. Best
2. Cold
3. Fast
4. Fun
5. New
6. Old
7. Ugly
8. Good
9. Beautiful
10.  Sweet

Answers:

1. Best
2. Cold, colder, coldest
3. Fast, faster, fastest
4. Fun
5. New, newer, newest
6. Old, older, oldest
7. Ugly, uglier, ugliest
8. Good
9. Beautiful
10. Sweet, sweeter, sweetest

Not too long ago we penned a post regarding how to improve your writing. But what about when you don’t feel like writing? There are times when you have a couple of hours to spare and you know you should be writing but simply can’t find the motivation. Now, we could give you some motivational tips to start writing, but that will be for another post. Instead, here are some things you can do with that spare time that indirectly involve writing but aren’t classified as “writing”.

1. Brainstorm Ideas

What better thing to do when not writing than to plan writing. Grab a notebook, a pen, a cup of tea and a comfy seat and start jotting down ideas for your book, article, blog post or whatever you might have in the pipeline.

2. Read About How To Improve Your Writing

Aside from this blog there are tones of others that will help you improve your writing. Check out www.thewritingsite.org and www.spellcheckonline.com for some great tips on grammar, spelling and other areas of writing.

3. Organize Your Files

I bet your desktop is a mess; files sprwaled all over the place. Furthermore, I bet the files in your documents folder aren’t organized into relavant folders. Am I right? If so, spend your spare time tidying up an having a clear out. Clearing space is mindful and sparks motivation and creativity for writing.

4. Post Some Links and Send Out Some Articles

If you have a blog why not post some links to your work on Facebook, Twitter or the comments section of other relevant blogs. Why not spend this spare time sending articles to relevant publications and websites in order to further your chances of getting paid work. A little self-promotion goes a long way.

5. Create a Portfolio

If you don’t already have one, you should. It only takes a couple of hours to put together examples of your best work for showcasing to potential employers, or simply to show friends and family. Get together some of your best pieces (published or unpublished) and put them into one folder on your computer. You might chose to upload your portfolio to your website.

Not too long ago we gave you 50 awesome verbs beginning with ex, and we promised you a part 2 with more! Well, here it is, 40 more verbs beginning with ex. Why 40 and not 50 this time? Because we thought it would be fun if you guys came up with another 10 yourselves, so leave your suggestions in the comments section and let’s make it 50! You can view verbs beginning with ex pt 1 here once you’ve read the new ones below.

1. Experiment: to test or try
2. Expiate: to absolve of guilt, or to make amends
3. Expire: to conclude or die, or to breath out
4. Explain: to make something known or understood or demonstrate knowledge or understanding
5. Explicate: to describe or analyze
6. Explode: to burst or give forth, or suddenly accelerate or increase
7. Extinguish: to eclipse, nullify, or quench
8. Extirpate: to cut out, destroy, or uproot
9. Extol: to glorify or praise
10. Extort: to wring from, to obtain from by argument or intimidation
11. Extract: to draw out, remove, or select
12. Extradite: to deliver a fugitive from one jurisdiction to another
13. Extrapolate: to infer, expand on, or predict
14. Extravasate: to cause to escape, or to force out (as in surgery)
15. Extricate: to free or remove from difficulty, or to distinguish from
16. Extrude: to press or push out, or to shape
17. Exuberate: to demonstrate unrestrained joy
18. Exude: to diffuse or spread out, or to display obviously
19. Exult: to rejoice
20. Exploit: to utilize, or to take advantage of knowledge
21. Explore: to analyze, investigate, or study, or to test or travel
22. Export: to carry, remove, or send
23. Expose: to make known, to show, or to subject to the elements or to view
24. Exposit: see expound
25. Expostulate: to discuss or examine
26. Expound: to argue, comment, or state
27. Express: to force out, to show, or to symbolize, or to offer feelings or opinions or to perform in order to demonstrate artistry and/or communicate creative material
28. Expropriate: to deprive of property or take another’s property for one’s own
29. Expulse: see expel
30. Extend: to put or send out
31. Extenuate: to mitigate or to reduce strength or effect
32. Exteriorize: to bring out from inside (as in surgery)
33. Exterminate: to get rid of or kill
34. Externalize: to rationalize, or to make manifest
35. Exit: to go out
36. Exonerate: to reverse an accusation
37. Exorcise: to get rid of an evil spirit or something troublesome
38. Expand: to enlarge or spread
39. Expatiate: to wander, or to communicate at length
40. Expatriate: to banish, or to withdraw from residence or allegiance

“Oh those horrid tenses,” I hear you cry. We feel your pain. But bear with them and persevere because tenses form the crux of the English language and we just can’t do without them. Tyring not to confuse you any further than you probably are already, this post is designed to help you get a grasp on the tenses and improve your grammar.

Modern English has six tenses. The first three tenses are the most commonly used and easy to define: past, present, future. Here is how they are used:

• Past: Yesterday I shopped.
• Present: Today I shop. Today he shops.
• Future: Tomorrow I shall/will shop.

The remaining three tenses are perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect. These are formed with helping verbs have, has, and had. These three are a little harder to grasp, and we suggest getting to grips with past, present and future first before graduating to these next three.

Perfect: This tense is used to express an event that has just finished, and to describe an event which, although in the past, has effects that continue into the present. She has been a lawyer for 25 years.

Pluperfect (past perfect): This tense is used to express an event that took place before another action, also in the past. 

I had driven all the way to Alabama when I realized I’d passed my destination 3 hours ago.

Future perfect: This tense is used to express an event that will have taken place at some time in the future.

As of March 19, I shall have been in this house eight years.

To get to grips with tenses and etch each one firmly in your memory, practice once tense a day for 2 weeks (you can have a day off on Sunday). Write 10 sentences in one tense per day. Before you know it you will be using tenses fluently.

Many aspiring writers have an urge to write but get stuck in the “I don’t know what to write about” zone. So, to stimulate your creative senses we have come up with four writing exercises that will give you not just plenty to write about but also improve your writing threefold. The best place to start writing is always about things you know; that’s easy, everyone knows something about something.

Exercise 1:

Pick you favorite TV series and write a hypnosis for a new episode. You can use the same characters and introduce new ones to the a new storyline. Don;t hold back, let your creative juices run wild on the page.

Exercise 2:

This is a bit harder. Go to the library or your dad’s bookshelf and pick up a book with an intriguing title. Dont read what it is about! Now go and write the first chapter of that book. Introduce the setting, story, characters. When you have finished compare your chapter with that of the original book; this is great fun.

Exercise 3:

Choose an intriguing piece of artwork you like, portraits are ideal. From the picture create a story based on the person or place. Think about the time in which they lived and the story told by their face. Consider the landscape or background and imagine what they might have endured in life based on expression and posture.

Exercise 4:

Create your own future…what might your life be like 20 years from now. Make it the perfect future; write down your goals, dreams and aspirations for your family and friends. Will you have children? Where will you live? What will your job be? What technology will be available?

Writing is supposed to be fun. Don’t stress out with writer’s block, use these exercises to get busy writing.

Verbs starting with “Ex” make for awesome words, and there is such a huge amount it beggars belief. We picked 50 of our favorites, noted down their meanings, and made an awesome list so you can improve and expand your verb usage. It’s probably a bit much to take in one go, so why not learn two a day and add them to your grammar armory slowly. Watch out for part 2, which will include another list of exciting “Ex” verbs…oops that was another.

1. Excise: to remove by cutting or as if by cutting
2. Excite: to arouse or stimulate
3. Exclaim: to cry out passionately or vehemently
4. Exclude: to bar, or to prevent entrance or inclusion
5. Expunge: to destroy or to strike out
6. Expurgate: to remove something objectionable
7. Exscind: to cut off or out
8. Exsert: to throw out
9. Exsiccate: to dry
10. Extemporize: to improvise
11. Excogitate: to devise
12. Excommunicate: to bar from membership
13. Excoriate: to abrade or censure
14. Excuse: to forgive or remove blame from or to justify or make an apology for
15. Execrate: to denounce
16. Execute: to carry out or perform
17. Exacerbate: to make worse
18. Exact: to call for and obtain (“exact revenge”)
19. Exaggerate: to overemphasize or overstate
20. Exalt: to glorify or intensify
21. Examine: to inspect, investigate, or scrutinize
22. Exasperate: to aggravate or enrage
23. Excavate: to remove or expose by digging or as if by digging
24. Exceed: to be greater than or to go beyond a limit or normal boundary
25. Excrete: to discharge or eliminate
26. Excruciate: to torture
27. Exculpate: to clear of blame or fault
28. Except: to keep out or to object
29. Excerpt: to take out or select, especially writing, for other use
30. Exchange: to trade
31. Exemplify: to embody or make an example of
32. Exempt: to set apart or release from a requirement
33. Exenterate: to disembowel
34. Exercise: to practice, train, or put to use
35. Exert: to put forth effort
36. Exfoliate: to cast off or remove
37. Exhale: to breathe out
38. Exhaust: to wear out
39. Exhibit: to show or demonstrate
40. Exhilarate: to refresh or stimulate
41. Exhort: to appeal to or to warn
42. Exhume: to disinter or to rectify neglect
43. Exile: to drive out
44. Exist: to continue to be or to have being
45. Expect: to await or to suppose
46. Expectorate: to discharge or spit
47. Expedite: to cause to occur quickly, or to dispatch or issue
48. Expel: to eject
49. Expend: to spend, use up, or utilize
50. Experience: to learn or sense by direct participation or observation

Why would you need a grammar checking software? Imagine receiving a business letter and you find it has a lot of spelling and grammatical errors.  You would most probably think less of the sender, wouldn’t you?  Be reminded, though, that more than 60 percent of all business communications have some kind of grammatical error like apostrophe errors, missing words, wrong spelling and more. Most of the times we do not have the patience and time to edit or proofread our work or, much less, other peoples work for a thorough grammar check. Enter grammar checking applications. Now, imagine what the readers of your letters, e-mail, business communications and other written material would think if 60 percent of your work had mistakes. Why would you take this chance of jeopardizing all those important documents when you could get help at reducing or eliminating errors with the two most popular grammar checking applications from Englishsoftware.org and Grammarly.com? Here, we compare, side by side, which of the two is better. ($ - means it is better, = – means even, in our opinion)

Conclusion:

This review is by no means a complete comparison of Englishsoftware.org’s Whitesmoke and Grammarly and there are features that could be unique to one product or present in both that have not been mentioned here. Both Grammarly and WhiteSmoke as grammar checking service are indeed more advanced and have more extra features than the built-in checker in MS Office but they will not suffice if you need a more comprehensive and detailed editing for your writing and to this end, nothing beats a trained and sharp human eye. Consequently, we can say that both detect a great majority of the most common errors, including many different error types, and will help greatly in speeding up the editing process.  However, it is important to understand that there are an infinite number of possible writing errors and it is impossible to detect all of them. From the side by side comparison of Grammarly and WhiteSmoke we can make conclusions on particular characteristics only as both have their own pros and cons but, ultimately, it’s all up to the individual user to decide which suits them best.