I'm a young Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language.

We talk about writing, history, rules, and cool stuff.

Today in honor of Halloween, we'll talk about how to describe grave markers and what makes

screams especially scary.

When autumn begins in the northern hemisphere, people often decorate their businesses and

homes to get ready for Halloween.

The National Retail Federation says Americans will spend a whopping $3.2 billion on Halloween

decorations this year.

So as you can imagine or as you may have seen in your own neighborhood, these decorations

can be quite elaborate.

You often see mummies, witches, skeletons, spiders, jack-a-lanterns, black cats, cobwebs,

ghosts and tombstones.

Or grave stones.

Is there a difference?

Does it even matter?

Well, the words tombstone and gravestone used to refer to large stone slabs that served

as a lid for a tomb or covering for a grave.

They might have had engravings on them, but their purpose was to secure a deceased body

in a tomb or in the ground.

Gravestone is the older word being used from the late 1300s, and tombstone is from the

mid 1500s.

A headstone, as the word implies, referred to a grave marker placed at the head of a grave.

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