Series: I Used to Know That

‘Will do for grammar what Eats Shoots and Leaves did for punctuation.’ – The Times My Grammar and I steers you in the direction of grammatical greatness, while offering amusing examples of awful grammar to avoid. Taking you on a tour of the English language, through the minefield of rules and conditions that can catch you out, from dangling modifiers...

It is estimated that on average an English-speaking adult has acquired a functioning vocabulary of 25,000 words by the time they reach middle age. That sounds like a lot – and more than enough for the daily purposes of communicating with each other in speech and writing. However, it is hard to feel quite so sanguine about our word power...