Common Errors in English

First, I'd like to thank my lovely wife over at boneflowers.blogspot.com for this tip: Paul Brians breaks down the English language and tells its speakers how the language is commonly abused. Informative? Maybe. Amusing? Definitely!

Second, I'd like to dwell on it for a bit. Especially some of the ones that were particularly new to me. Like, for instance, the potential problem of catching flack for misusing of the word 'flak.' What? Oh, well, according to Brians,

"“Flak” is WW II airman’s slang for shells being fired at you in the air, so to catch a lot of flak is to feel in danger of being shot down. However, most civilians these days have never heard of “flak,” so they use “flack” instead, which originally meant “salesman” or “huckster.” You need to worry about this only if you’re among old-time veterans. "

Hmmm, I have to admit that I never knew that. Hopefully someone out there gets something out if it, if only a chuckle...afterall, I think we've all known that there was something funny about grammer, even if we could never put our fingers on it!