LanguageFilter: How can a native English speaker develop a better sense of grammatical cases? [more inside]
posted by mary8nne on Jul 22, 2009 - 16 answers

You capitalize "The Civil War", right? And you capitalize "The Civil Rights Movement", right? Do you capitalize "The Women's Movement"? Do you capitalize "The Anti-Globalization Movement"? What about the "Spay and Neuter 'Movement'"? Is every specific movement or event in history considered a proper noun – and if not, why not? Do I get to just arbitrarily decide what to capitalize in these sorts of examples, or is there some 'rule' that only applies to historic events that hold a certain level of significance – and who decides what is significant enough? [more inside]
posted by serazin on Oct 22, 2007 - 43 answers

I'm trying to find an exact quote about swearing. It went something like "When a British soldier uses the word 'fucking', it's only to let you know a noun is coming up." The original source might be Ashley Montague or Robert Graves, but print and Google searches have failed me.
posted by rosemere on Aug 21, 2006 - 9 answers

Why do senior citizens refer to one-word objects with two words? [more inside]
posted by Servo5678 on Oct 15, 2005 - 27 answers

Is there a single-word noun that means "things that relate to blogs/are in the manner of blogs?" If not, any ideas for a made-up one?
posted by Nikolai on Jun 15, 2004 - 28 answers