You beggar people by impoverishing them, reducing them to beggary. This term now survives mainly in metaphorical expressions such as “it beggars description” (exhausts my ability to describe it) or “it beggars belief” (exhausts my ability to believe it).

People who aren’t familiar with this meaning of the word “beggar” often substitute “beg,” saying of something implausible that it “begs belief.” This makes no sense, for it implies that the story is trying to persuade you to believe it.

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In modern English “began” is the simple past tense of “begin” “he began to study for the test at midnight.”

But the past participle form—preceded by a helping verb—is “begun.” “By morning, he had begun to forget everything he’d studied that night.”

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This is a fine example of what linguists call “popular etymology.” People don’t understand the origins of a word or expression and make one up based on what seems logical to them. “Beck” is just an old shortened version of “beckon.” If you are at people’s beck and call it means they can summon you whenever they want: either by gesture (beck) or speech (call).

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The French bureaucrats from whom we get this word worked at their bureaus (desks, spelled bureaux in French) in what came to be known as bureaucracies.

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The plural of “basis” is “bases,” pronounced “BAY-sees” (not to be confused with Baywatch).

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In American English when you focus narrowly on something or define it carefully you “get a bead” or “draw a bead” on it. In this expression the term “bead” comes from the former name for the little metal bump on the end of a gun barrel which helped the shooter aim precisely at a target. “Beat” is often mistakenly substituted for “bead” by people who imagine that the expression has something to do with matching the timing of the person or activity being observed, catching up with it.

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A “bazaar” is a market where miscellaneous goods are sold. “Bizarre,” in contrast, is an adjective meaning “strange,” “weird.”

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There are “-ly” words and “-ally” words, and you basically just have to memorize which is which. But “basically” is very much overused and is often better avoided in favor of such expressions as “essentially,” “fundamentally,” or “at heart.”

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Like Billy the singing bass, things musical are usually “bass”: bass guitars, bass drums, bass clefs. Don’t use the more common word “base” in such contexts.

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When you offer to trade your vintage jeans for a handwoven shirt in Guatemala, you are engaged in barter—no money is involved. One thing (or service) is traded for another.

But when you offer to buy that shirt for less money than the vendor is asking, you are engaged in haggling or bargaining, not bartering.

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