Today's Writing Tip Is When to Use Imply and Infer

These terms sometimes trip people up and there's no reason for it. The person who is talking implies and the person who is listening infers. Here are examples:

Imply – to insinuate. Helen implied that she was running out of money.

Infer – to speculate. From what Helen said, Dahlia inferred that Helen was running out of money.

Happy writing!

Sigrid

Today's Writing Tip Is When to Use Number and When to Use Amount

If you read last week's tip on when to use less and when to use fewer, you are ahead of the game because the same principle applies to using the words number and amount. We use number for things that we can count or quantify and we use amount for things that we can't. Here are examples:

Number –- iPhones, paintings, glasses. There were a number of empty glasses on the table.

Amount –- food in the pantry, sleep, homework. What is the amount of caffeine in coffee? We bought a large amount of beer for the party. Now, technically, we could count those beers one by one, but the word amount refers to the sum total: the gestalt.

Happy writing.

Sigrid