Answer: b.

Explanation:
Underlying refers to something that lies beneath — the beliefs that underlie an argument, a motive that underlies an action, an issue that underlies a problem.

Underlining is something you do to make something stand out. File this one under eggcorn, I guess — another one that people hear and fail to realize is a separate word. Online, there do seem to be a number of people searching for “what does underlining problem mean.” No wonder they don’t understand.

Here’s Paul Brians’ explanation:

You can stress points by underlining them, but it’s “underlying” in expressions like “underlying story,” “underlying motive,” and “underlying principle.”

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I had a comment, a while back, on this post about “comprised of.” The correspondent wrote that, contrary to my conclusion, “comprised of” is acceptable in the UK. I know these things differ, so I had a look around.

This Wikipedian, who seems to have a mission, explored the issue deeply and came up with the result that, no “comprised of” is not acceptable grammar, not in North America, the UK, or anywhere else.
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Answer: b.

Explanation:
People often cite Apple’s corporate address because it’s funny — an infinite loop is a piece of coding that lacks a functional exit, and as a result, repeats indefinitely.

The first meaning of the word factoids is “facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper.” Norman Mailer coined the term in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe. The oid suffix means similar but not the same, like an android is similar to, but not the same as, a human. Here’s the Washington Times description of a factoid: something that looks like a fact, could be a fact, but in fact is not a fact.

That said, factoid has been used so often to refer to true but trivial facts — little facts — that that’s now an accepted, but secondary, meaning.

Given that the secondary meaning contradicts the primary one, you might want to avoid using it. The danger is that people will think your interesting bit of trivia is untrue, or that, conversely, they’ll believe your made-up fact.

Wikipedia has an interesting entry on factoids.

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Answer: a

Explanation: 
In the U.S., these terms are often used interchangeably to mean “no doubt.”

Elsewhere, however “no question that” is usually taken to mean the opposite. If you say there’s no question that someone acted inappropriately, in most parts of the English-speaking word it’s equivalent to saying they acted appropriately.

That being the case, it’s probably best to avoid “no question that” or “no question of,” to avoid ambiguity.

No doubt vs. no question is one of the entries Richard Nordquist shares from the Guardian Style Guide.

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Explanation:
I had a lot of fun writing about augur vs. auger a while back and I thought I was done. But no — there’s more grammar fun to be had. To augur is to indicate or predict from signs or omens; augury is the practice of doing so. Apparently, some people hear “augurs well” and, unfamiliar with augurs think what was said was all goes. This is an eggcorn — a word or phrase that people misshear and then think is something else entirely. The error often goes unnoticed in speech because it sounds enough like the correct term that people may not notice. But then when people write it out, the error is displayed.

Paul Brians reported these two examples for the Eggcorn Database:

• “IF RRL come out with an announcement re GOLD production to start getting a $$$flow it all goes well for Future exploration” (link)
• “he almost got something from the game but despite losing late on Lisselton did show a marked improvement in form and it all goes well for the future.” (link)

I suspect there’s also some confusion with the correct uses of the phrase “all goes well,” as in “If all goes well, I’ll be there by noon” or “I hope all goes well with your presentation.”

I guess you could say that the complexities of the English language combined with the inventiveness of its speakers augurs well for the continuation of this blog.

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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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Answer: a.

Explanation:
“Simplified” means made more simple. Which is definitely what you want in a “Dummies” book on virtualization, because the idea of having to learn even the essentials has been known to make grown CEOs weep.

“Simplistic,” on the other hand, means overly simplified. If we said the book provided a simplistic explanation of virtualization, the implication would be that the text was lacking important information or was too basic to be useful. On that note, let’s also resolve that we don’t have to say anything is overly simplistic — you’ve already gone too far if something is simplistic.

In his post on simple and simplistic, Richard Norquist explains why people might tend to use the latter:

“Because simplistic is the longer and more academic-looking word, it’s sometimes misguidedly chosen by those who want to make their words more impressive.”

Aha. And there really is very little that makes someone look LESS impressive, intelligence-wise, than making errors when they’re trying to show off.

Nordquist quotes Einstein: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Amen. After all, ’tis a gift to be simple — but no one ever said ’twas a gift to be simplistic.

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Answer: a.

Explanation:
I’m fairly certain that Bernie Madoff doesn’t have an elk. (And if he does, I hope the elk doesn’t have to do time with him.) No, this sentence is talking about Madoff and others like him.

Ilk is a Middle English word that means type or sort, from the Old English ilca ( and it derives from i, meaning that or the same and lik, meaning form).

And, really, I don’t expect to catch too many readers with today’s question but I couldn’t resist this eggcorn. Especially after I heard reports of people spurning Sarah Palin and her elk. I mean, Palin, for sure, but why hurt the feelings of the harmless moose? One pictures the two of them trudging off dispiritedly into the Alaskan bush, massive heads hanging.

The Eggcorn Database has a great entry exploring the elk/ilk confusion. Here’s an excerpt quoting Ben Zimmer on Language Labs:

There’s nothing in the comment to suggest that this substitution was the result of intentional wordplay, but it’s hard not to think that the slip was influenced by Palin’s well-documented love of hunting big game in Alaska like moose and caribou. […] And perhaps the commenter is from a part of the country where milk is pronounced as [mɛlk] (say, Pittsburgh, Utah, or Washington State), rendering ilk and elk homophonous, or nearly so. Add the fact that ilk is a low-frequency word that lingers in crystallized idiomatic usage (”of X’s ilk,” “X and his/her/its/their ilk”), and it’s clear to see that this is a prime candidate for eggcornization.

But really, both posts are interesting and entertaining. You should go read them!

P.S.: I do agree that Madonna and her elk should get first class treatment — even if the elk requires several seats.

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Explanation:
If something is moving towards you — like a deadline — moving it forward will make it closer to you and moving it back will move it farther away.

The Grammarphobia blog, by the authors of Woe is I, has a nice response to this question.

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