WHEN we were children and just beginning to learn English grammar, many of us were taken aback by the strange failure of some verbs to work in certain sentence constructions. For instance, perhaps ...

When a sentence uses a transitive verb to describe an action, it’s necessary for the subject to take a direct object and to act on it: “The woman spurned her suitor last week.” ...

We often see the frequent occurrence of the word resign and its derivative in the print, electronic and social media thanks to politicians who hand in resignation letters. Look at these news headlines ...