A few days ago I was helping my cousin proofread some of her work. She asked me why we have to use "a woman" instead of  "a women." This is clearly a confusing and easily mistaken part of English because in some languages, such as mandarin, there are no specific nouns to distinguish between one woman or many women.

There are so many singular and plural words in English, but my focus today is just on helping you understand the difference between WOMAN, WOMEN, MAN, MEN.

With one female or male, we always use 'a' - womAn and mAn
With two or more females or males, we use 'e' - womEn and mEn

Also remember to use the correct verb for each noun.
Since it's Father's Day today, I'm going to give an example related to this:
"He is a great man" - singular (uses the verb 'is')
"They are great men" - plural (uses the verb 'are')


Related Lessons:
Jean or Jeans
This or That
English is a Strange Language

In life there are always choices. Think about when you go to Starbucks to order something, you must make a few decisions: do you want coffee or tea?  tall, short, or grande size? Iced or hot?

There are certain ways we can talk about choices or to express none of the choices. One of them is using 'either' and 'neither' as conjunctions.

'Either' and 'neither' can be commonly used as conjunctions with 'or' and 'nor.' It is always 'either' with 'or' and 'neither' with 'nor.'

Let's look at the pair, 'either/or' first.

Either/ or provides a choice between two possibilities. Usually options are open and given. It basically means this one or another one.

We can place 'either' at the beginning of a sentence
For example,
"Either my mom or dad will attend"

It is placed after a verb if the two actions use the same verb
For example,
"We can watch either Batman or Titanic." - The verb is "watch" in this sentence

Either is placed before a verb if the two actions are different and uses a different verb
For example,
"I can either go back to school or find a new job." - The verbs 'go' and 'find' are different

Neither/nor are used in negative sentences meaning, not this one and not the other. I don't want/ have any of those choice (same as not either)
For example,
"Neither coffee nor tea."
"I'm sorry but neither size 6 nor 7 are available."


A good way to remember the difference is to think of 'either' as being one and 'neither' as being none. It's also important to remember that you can't interchange 'either' with 'nor' and use 'neither' with 'or.' Both 'either' and 'neither' can also be used as adjectives and pronouns. In both cases they also carry the same meaning ('either' means one or the other and  'neither' means none of the two )

Related Lessons:
This and That
Learning From The Movie Up
Solve The Robbery

If you've ever taken business courses,  the term "cash cow" might be familiar to you. Anything or anyone that can generate a large amount of profit for the company can be known as a cash cow.

But what does a cow have to do with it? It's basically a metaphor. Think about if you invest your money to buy a cow, it will continue to produce milk (money) even after your investment has been paid off. It will keep making money for many more years. It's a cash cow!