Answer: b.

Explanation:
The expression is “tide me over,” per the OED, Merriam-Webster, World Wide Words and the Urban Dictionary (I’d include a link but as is often the case with UD, example use provided is not suitable for a family-oriented grammar blog).

On WWW, Michael Quinion provides this appearance in print:

… from Edward Meyrick Goulburn’s book The Pursuit of Holiness of 1869: “As an exuberant mounting flood shall tide us over the difficulties of our career”.

I also found this strongly-worded argument for “tie me over.”  The writer is quite, quite certain that “tide me over” is not only an error, but probably a mispronunciation of the *correct* “tie me over.” Apparently the writer was SO sure that s/he didn’t bother to consult any authoritative sources:

WARNING: It is a common misconception that the phrase “tie me over” is actually pronounced “tide me over.” Some even go so far as to say the “tide” refers to the ebb and flow of hunger, but this is not the case. Rest assured “tie me over” is correct. Using the phrase “tide me over” makes one assume you’ve been kidnapped and thrown into the ocean with cement around your feet.

Where did I find that? Wikibin — AKA Wikipedia’s recycle bin.

The moral? No matter how certain you are, check your facts before sharing your opinion.

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Answer: a

Explanation:
Bona fide is a Latin term meaning in good faith. It’s more often used to mean authentic these days. Bonified is a common misspelling for it — and one that attracts a lot of mockery — but it’s actually a word. Bonify is a somewhat archaic term that means to make something good, especially something that was bad before. Both the bona of bona fide and the bon of bonify come from the Latin word for good, bonus.

Wordnik lists these among mistaken examples of bonified online:

• “At this point, the only thing that will change anything is a bonified miracle of the highest kind.”
  Face It, Progs: Obama’s a Dud « Antiwar.com Blog
• “It amazes me what the art community will accept as bonified art.”
  Situational Taxidermy
• “My father, a 52-year-old bonified curmudgeon, has not viewed any movie trailer in the last ten years with anything other than codified disinterest.”
  2008 June « the balcony fool

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Answer: a.

Explanation:
Sewing is stitching something together, like a tailor sews two pieces of fabric or a doctor sews a nasty cut. Sowing, on the other hand, is planting, as in putting seeds in the ground that you hope will grow. I guess as a culture, we’re increasingly distanced from the agricultural past but I was surprised by how frequently “sew” pops up online when it should be “sow.” In fact, it appears to be much more common in the phrase “you reap what you ____.”

Google poll:

You reap what you sew: 17,100,000

You reap what you sow:  3,200,000

Even allowing for the intentional uses of “sew” as a pun, that’s an awful lot of instances of the wrong use.

Paul Brians includes “reap what you sew” in his Common Errors in English Usage:

When you plant seeds you sow them. Galatians 6:7 says “A man reaps what he sows” (harvests what he plants, gets what he deserves). This agricultural metaphor gets mangled frequently into “you reap what you sew.” At best, you might rip what you sew, but you probably wouldn’t want to tell people about it.

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Answer: a.

Explanation:
People often talk about a 360 degree change in something as if it were a complete reversal but a 360 degree turn actually takes you right back to the original position. Maybe this is why we humans have so much trouble making changes — we keep turning things around 360° and ending up right back where we started. If you want the most change possible, you should aim for 180 degrees.

From Math Is Fun:

The Full Circle A Full Circle is 360° Half a circle is 180° (called a Straight Angle) Quarter of a circle  is 90° (called a Right Angle)

A 90 degree turn takes you a quarter of the way around; a 180 is a complete reversal. Another 90 degrees takes you to 270 and if you go 90 degrees beyond that you’re at 360 degrees, which is back at zero — where you started.

Math is Fun offers this explanation for why we use 360 for the full circle:

Probably because old calendars (such as the Persian Calendar) used 360 days for a year – when they watched the stars they saw them revolve around the North Star one degree per day.

***

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Explanation:
Ingenuous means unworldly and naive, possibly to the extent of being a trifle simple. Other than when the word is mistakenly used instead of ingenious, we mostly hear it in its negative form, disingenuous, which means, essentially to be wily but pretending to be unworldly or lacking in knowledge, usually to serve some underhanded purpose.

Ingenious, on the other hand, means clever, inventive.

Simon Kevin writes about these two in Daily Writing Tips. Here’s an excerpt:

“Sometimes a single letter can make a great deal of difference to the meaning of a word. Take, for example, the two words ingenious and ingenuous. Ingenious means clever, original or inventive. It derives ultimately from the Latin word ingenium, which means a natural capacity or talent. It’s the same word from which engine, among other words, derives.”

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1. Top Security Specialists offers the best in personal service and puts our R&D at your ___________.
a. beck and call
b. beckon call
Which is correct?

2. The fact that the email had been deleted ______ that the evidence contained in it might have been damaging to the defendant.
a. implied
b. inferred
Which is correct?

3. The book “Virtualization for Dummies” provides a ___________ explanation of virtualization that helps readers achieve a basic level of understanding.
a. simplified
b. simplistic
Which is correct?

4. The Singularity is a __________ future point when technology will have advanced beyond our ability to foresee or control its outcomes and the world transformed beyond recognition by the application of superintelligence to humans and/or human problems.
a. theoretical
b. hypothetical
Which is correct?

5. The user-training for the new business intelligence software was extensive, in the hopes that employees would be __________ by the change.
a. unphased
b. unfazed
Which is correct?

6. The colocation service provider promised to deal with all issues _____________.
a. expeditiously
b. expediently
Which is correct?

7. The advance warning of restrictions gave credit card companies __________ to find new ways to gouge consumers.
a. free rein
b. free reign
Which is correct?

8. A manager’s level of emotional intelligence _______ the entire office.
a. effects
b. affects
Which is correct?

9. They felt the report was unclear and requested a new plan defining __________ changes rather than broad, ill-defined goals.
a. substantial
b. substantive
Which is correct?

10. Intravenous systems enable _________ delivery of medication, which is often more beneficial to the patient than the intermittent delivery of oral medications.
a. continuous
b. continual
Which is correct?

Explanation:
An architecture is a conceptual model of the components of some IT system; infrastructure is the hardware components.

Reminds me a bit of how some anonymous wag thought to differentiate hardware from software:

Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called software. – Anonymous

That’s one of the entries in Our Favorite Technology Quotations. If you liked it, there’s lots more where that came from.

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Answer: b.

Explanation:
These two are easy to confuse because the meanings are similar. They are distinct, though. Apiece means each. For example: The movie tickets cost $9.50 apiece.

As two words, a piece means per piece, for something that comes in discrete pieces. For example: “We sold cake for $5 a piece” means that we sold each piece of cake for $5. If we said we sold cake for $5 apiece, that would mean that we sold each cake for $5. So make sure you get the signs right at your bake sale if you want to make any money.

Paul Brians explains the difference between apiece and a piece in Common Errors in English Usage.

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“We don’t know whether platform or service is the direction enterprises are going to go — whether enterprises are willing to ______ a client/server environment.”

a. forego

b. forgo

Answer: b.

Explanation:

Forgo is the word you want here. It means, essentially, to give up or to go without willingly. A lot of people don’t understand that these are two different words, but they are. Forego means to go before, as in “Choose the right word to fill in the blank in the foregoing sentence.”

In a post on forego vs. forgo, Grammarist provides these examples of incorrect choices in the mainstream media:

The Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress could forego trying to approve a budget blueprint this year … [Reuters]

Unions representing the county’s 8,000 workers agreed to forego cost-of-living raises for the next two years … [Baltimore Sun]

Hobson announced he will forego his senior season in pursuit of his NBA dreams. [Daily Lobo]

*******

No wonder so many of us get it wrong. But just because all the big kids do it doesn’t mean you should too. Set yourself apart by forgoing blindly following the leaders — especially if they’re heading over a cliff.

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Answer: a
In this context, express means explicitly stated. Expressed just means communicated in some way. And, as Warren Clements explained, if you’ve got permission, you’ve got expressed permission (really, how else would you know?):

“…expressed written permission is redundant, since if the permission is written it is by definition expressed. To express, from exprimere by way of the medieval Latin expressare (also to press out), means to put into words. Unlike express permission, expressed permission may be merely implied, which is why Major League Baseball, in one section of a long legal disclaimer, says it makes no warranties of any kind, “either express or implied.” Expressed can even mask a lie: The visitors’ expressed intention was to check the house’s wiring, but they were really casing the joint.”

Although you might think that there’s not much difference between express and expressed and there’s no point in being persnickety about it, we need express to continue to mean what it means.

Express is used in law, for example, to differentiate an explicit contract from an implicit contract. Lucas Gonze explains implicit contracts here:

“An implicit contract is one where the terms are NOT
expressed, neither orally nor on paper. You walk
into a restaurant and sit down. The waitress asks,
“What would you like?” You say, “A slice of apple
pie sounds good.” After you eat, she brings a bill.
What? A bill?!? You thought she was just being
kind. Never did you *explicitly* agree to pay for the
pie. Well .. the court isn’t going to buy that. You
made an implicit contract when you went through
the socially conventional mechanisms for eating
at a restaurant, thereby accepting the socially
conventional, implied contract for doing so.

The world would be a messy place if it weren’t
for implicit contracts. Cafeterias, restaurants,
and gas stations would be far less convenient and
carry far more friction if we had to make explicit
contracts before engaging in business.”

Bonus trivia question: According to the concept of fair use, is it sometimes permissible to reproduce copyright material?
Answer

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