I'm having a surprising amount of fun reading articles about English vocabulary right now. Specifically, those focused on explaining the differences between commonly confused words. Turns out that, while I have been using most of these correctly, I still have some things to learn.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/easily-confused-words
@Mayana similarly, I’ve recently been reading about grammatical oddities, like “more people have been to Russia than I have”, or “colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” The English language is a strange one, for sure 😆
@jonah But ... but ... wouldn't that be "More people than just I have been to Russia"? Or am I misunderstanding the sentence?
@Mayana Ha ha. It’s a linguistics phenomenon of certain comparative sentences where they sound like they make sense, but if you actually think about what they are saying it’s just nonsense: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_illusion
@jonah "In linguistics, comparative illusions (CIs) or Escher sentences are certain comparative sentences which initially seem to be acceptable but upon closer reflection have no well-formed meaning."
Hah! I am immune to the trick! I immediately felt those two weren't acceptable.
But then again, I was also unsure enough about my knowledge to wonder if they might be, so ... no superpowers. 🙁
This is fascinating, thank you for sharing.