grammar

In a previous post I talked about how “alright” is overused. But “alright” is becoming more accepted, and it’s necessary in more cases than I thought.

I said that you could write, “The weather is all right today.” You could argue that that actually means the weather is totally good or “correct,” rather than simply okay. “The weather is alright,” on the other hand, means the weather is okay.

This change in meaning is highlighted in, “The numbers are all right,” as opposed to, “The numbers are alright.” The first means that all the numbers are correct; the second means that the numbers are acceptable.

So go ahead. But I won’t be too quick to follow, alright?

http://futaomnom.tumblr.com/post/93743035927

“Shear” means to “cut, tear, or stretch”, or (as an adjective), something related to those actions (“shear stress”).

“Sheer” (as an adjective) means either “pure; utter” (“sheer failure”) or “thin and transparent” (“sheer fabric”).

I think the image caption should be “Sheer Pleasure”, as it could refer to either the fact that the pleasure is pure and total, or the fact that the fabric of the dress is sheer, leading to pleasure.

We love this word, don’t we? Learn how to use it!

The rules depend on which spelling you’re going to use. The traditional spelling is “come”, but some people prefer “cum” (probably to distinguish it from the regular, non-sexual meaning of “come”).

If you’re going to use “come”, then the rules are the same as for the regular meaning. People usually get them right, but a lot of times (for both meanings) people write “have/has/had/should’ve/would’ve/could’ve came”. No, if you have a form of the verb “have” (“have”, “has”, or “had”, including ’ve contractions), the past participle (yes, that’s what it’s called) is come. That’s right. “They come, they have come.” It’s like “run”: “They run, they have/has/had run [not ran].”

If you’re using the “cum” spelling, you have a few more options. For simple past tense, you can use the irregular form “came” or the regular form “cummed”, though I encounter “came” more often.

The past participle, as I’ve encountered it, is almost always “cummed”. Maybe it should be “cum”, but I guess “I have cum” is too awkward.

TL;DR version: It’s either:

• They come, they came, they have come; or
• They cum, they came/cummed, they have cummed.

Given that “climax” does have a sexual meaning, this is at least somewhat relevant.

The adjective that means “relating to climax” is spelled “climactic”, with three C’s in all. The very similarly spelled word “climatic” (with only two C’s) means “relating to climate”, as in the Climatic Research Unit. So, you might write about “climactic moans,” but not “climatic moans” (unless it really has to do with climate).

(Extra tidbit: When I tried searching “climactic moans” (exact phrase) on Google, it actually said Did you mean: “climatic moans”. That’s right, Google suggested a misspelling because so many people use it.)