Thursday, September 21, 2006

Today's English lesson

From Common Errors in English:

Help Stamp Out Silly Mistakes!

Stamp vs. Stomp

"Stomp" is colloquial, casual. A professional wrestler stomps his opponent. In more formal contexts "stamp" is preferred. But you will probably not be able to stamp out the spread of "stomp."

For an artist, a stomp refers to a pencil-shaped stick made of compressed paper, sharpened with a regular pencil sharpener but used to smudge pencil or pastels to soften their appearance on the paper.

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