Language Trivia Quizzes

English Is a Borrower

A large part of English arrived from somewhere else — Latin, French, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese — and most of those words have blended in so thoroughly that their origins are invisible. Language trivia is often the pleasure of finding out where a familiar word actually came from.

These quizzes cover borrowings, idioms, spelling, grammar and word origins, with a bias toward the surprising over the technical.

Grammar Without the Grammar Lesson

Most fluent speakers apply rules they could not state. You know that a sentence sounds wrong long before you could name the reason, which makes grammar questions oddly hard for people who write well.

The questions here ask about usage rather than terminology. Knowing what a semicolon does matters more than being able to define a subordinate clause.

Common Questions

Is this for native speakers only?

No, though some idiom questions assume familiarity with English as it is spoken day to day. The word-origin and grammar questions are open to anyone.

Which English is used?

Both British and American usage appear. Where the two differ in spelling or meaning, the question makes clear which one it is asking about.