These two words, both adjectives, are closely related, but different in meaning. Systemic means “a property of a system (as a whole)”:             Systemic racism is difficult to avoid and even hard to detect in any society consisting of marganlized racial groups.             Anxiety seems to be a systemic problem in the human body. The first example, systemic racism, […]

Then and than are both function words (like prepositions and conjunctions). Many English function words begin with th- (e.g. this, they, that), which is because they were originally borrowed into English from the Old Norse language. You might run into a variety of ideas about the part-of-speech of these words, because they are complex, but don’t […]

These are two ways of saying the same word. Often we spell the first one with an apostrophe – ‘possum – to indicate the missing ‘o’. Americans usually say ‘possum, because it is easier to say in fast casual speech, and Americans use the word a lot, because ‘possums are everywhere in America! Under your […]

These two words have nothing in common except their sound. Phase is used mainly as a noun meaning ‘a stage in a process,’ although it has many more uses, discussed below. Faze is used only as a verb, meaning ‘to disturb someone and make them feel uncertain or afraid.’ Phase has a variety of meanings related to […]

Quick AnswerUpmost means “the highest” in terms of elevation (distance above the ground), ranking, or degree. The upmost floor of the building contains the luxury VIP suite. Utmost means “the most possible” or “most extreme.” Please use the utmost caution when feeding sharks. These two words are often confused because they sound similar and even appear […]