News & Insights

Economical has a narrower meaning than economic. It means ‘not wasteful or extravagant; designed to save money (e.g., through efficiency)’:

He is very economical: he always turns off the light when he leaves the room.
That heating system is very economical: it operates at the lower, off-peak rate.

Economic means “relating to the economy of a country, a household or the income of an individual; relating to the study of economics; financially rewarding; efficient”:

(The economy)                      Economic growth; economic measures
(Economics)                         Economic theories; economic analyses
(Income)                                 He retired for economic reasons; economic migrants
(Financially rewarding)       It was no longer economic to keep the factory open
(Efficient)                               The economic use of resources

Incidentally, is the first syllable pronounced EEK or EKK? The answer is either – it is one of those rare cases where there is no preference. The two pronunciations are used more or less randomly, both in UK and US English.

©2013 Baxter Publishing, Hilversum, The Netherlands

What courtesy title should you give a woman in English these days? It depends on whether she is married or not, the context (personal or business), her age and, to some extent, her nationality! Obviously, your best strategy is to use the title people give themselves. But what do you do if they don’t give themselves a title? For those occasions, use the handy table below.

You may have noticed – and perhaps been puzzled by – the variant spellings of the past tense and past participles of certain English verbs, such as these:

Sorry, I’ve burned/burnt the toast.
Over time, he learned/learnt to accept it.
She spilled/spilt the milk all over the table.
You’ve spelled/spelt that word wrong.
I dreamed (DREEMD)/dreamt (DREMT) about you last night.

Is this variation purely arbitrary? Not really. But it’s not strictly rule-governed either. Which form is used depends partly on geography, partly on grammatical function, and partly on the particular word in question.  In other words, it’s another one of those fuzzy bits of language.

Let’s look at geography first. In the above sentences, many people in the UK would normally use the -t form (though you will also hear, and see, the -ed form). Americans, however, almost always use the -ed form.

Then grammar. As the following sentences illustrate, past participles can also be used as adjectives, appearing either before the noun or after part of the verb to be:

You should never eat burnt toast.
That toast is burnt.
It’s no use crying over spilt milk.

In such cases, the -t form is widely used, both in the UK and the US. However, there is one major exception to this pattern (in so far as you can call it a pattern), and that is learned. It is always spelt with -ed in those grammatical circumstances:

Some people believe anxiety is a learned response (‘acquired by learning’)
Such behaviour is not innate: it is learned.

When learned means ‘highly educated, erudite’, it also has a different pronunciation (LERN-id):

A learned man (‘highly educated’), a learned remark (‘erudite’)
She was very learned indeed, especially in the field of hermeneutics.

Now you can demonstrate to family and friends how learned you are, by explaining how fuzzy the whole business is…

 ©2013 Baxter Publishing, Hilversum, The Netherlands

When you’re finishing a letter or e-mail, how should you capitalise the final phrase (or ‘complimentary close’, to give it its official name)? Should you give all the words a capital letter, just the first one, or none at all? This is a point that even native speakers are often uncertain about!

The answer is: you capitalise only the first one. This applies to both business and personal correspondence, and to both UK and US English. The following are therefore all written correctly:

Kind regards
Best regards
With love
Yours sincerely
Sincerely yours
With best wishes
Yours faithfully
Yours truly

Of course, if there is only one word in the close, then that gets a capital:

Love
Regards
Sincerely
Cordially
Yours
Cheers
Best

©2013 Baxter Publishing, Hilversum, The Netherlands

It’s a euro. The rule for using a or an is that we use a before a consonant and an before a vowel. But this rule is based on pronunciation, not spelling.

Sometimes, as in the case of euro, a word begins with a vowel in the spelling, but with a consonant in the pronunciation. Euro is pronounced you-roh, and y here is a consonant. It therefore takes a – just like other words that begin with a y, like year and yard.

Other words that begin with a vowel in the spelling but a consonant in the pronunciation, and therefore take a, include:

a European treaty
a Uruguayan soldier
a unit
a university education
a US spokesman
a unified theory
a euphemism
a Unilever product
a unique event
a universal principle
a United Nations official
a union official
a useful object
a one-day event

©2013 Baxter Publishing, Hilversum, The Netherlands

You’ll find that the UK spell checker on your computer allows both practice and practise. Does that mean you can choose which one you like? If only life – and in particular English–were that simple!

No, when practice is a noun, it is spelt with c in British English:

What does this mean in practice?
We need to adopt best practices.
Practice makes perfect.

However, when it is a verb, it is spelt with s:

You must practise more often.
He practises medicine in London.

Of course, that means you need to know how to tell whether it’s a noun or a verb! But that’s not too hard. As a rule of thumb, a verb can have words like I, you or he before it, whereas a noun can have words like the, his or some in that position.

Thanks to Noah Webster,the 18th/19th-century American teacher and dictionary-maker, the spelling in US English is more straightforward. Both the noun and the verb are spelt with c:

Noun: It takes a lot of practice to get it right.

Verb: The team is going to practice this afternoon.
Verb: I haven’t practiced for years.

©2013 Baxter Publishing, Hilversum, The Netherlands