I'm Amy on Fogarty and this week I have a quick and dirty tip about the word matriculate.

A meaty middle about diminutives, words such as doggy and mazi.

That's what I hear Australians call mosquitoes, mazzies.

And finally a tidbit about the difference between crocodiles and alligators because I kept

mixing them up.

Now on to matriculating.

Matriculate is most commonly used as a verb.

It means to enroll in or be admitted to a group such as a college, university or program.

It does not mean to graduate.

When matriculate is used as a verb, it's usually followed by a preposition such as

att, into or to.

Matriculate at seems to be the most common phrase as in Emily matriculated at Ohio State

this year.

Sometimes matriculate is also used as a noun to refer to someone who's been admitted

to a program as in he's a matriculate at the university.

But according to Oxford dictionaries such uses chiefly limited to Indian English.

And that was your quick and dirty tip.

In American English matriculating is what a lot of students are doing this month, starting

in school.

And now on to the meaty middle about diminutives.

Words like doggy, first to names like bill and pet names like sweetie pie.

Dominatives indicate that an item is smaller than something else, for example, or are

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