The state of Pakistan is a dystopian transformation from a noun to a verb. Ostensibly formed to protect the rights of people purportedly subsumed under the colonial and later Congress rule, the state ...

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.” ...

The distinction between “lay” and “lie” continues to fade. Almost without exception, people say, “I laid on the couch.” They never seem to say, “I lay on the couch.” Plus, people usually throw in the ...