WHEN we were children and just beginning to learn English grammar, many of us were taken aback by the strange failure of some verbs to work in certain sentence constructions. For instance, perhaps ...

The past week witnessed the frequent occurrence of the words ‘resign’ and its derivative ‘resignation’ in the print, electronic and social media, thanks to LK Advani who stunned the BJP with his ...

A verb is usually defined as a word or combination of words that either expresses an action or says something about the existence or condition of a noun or pronoun. This article will tease out ...

Here is a bit of grammar. The verbs "lie" and "lay", and their respective past tenses and past participles, are the occasion of endless confusion. Even so elegant a writer as Bruce Anderson can trip ...

The state of Pakistan is a dystopian transformation from a noun to a verb. Ostensibly formed to protect the rights of people purportedly subsumed under the colonial and later Congress rule, the state ...

A reader took issue with the title of my column two weeks ago. Inter alia, he wrote; “It is incorrect to say ‘Beware of’ . The correct usage is either “Be aware of” or just ‘Beware’. In response, I ...