Everything and anything about grammar.
Dialogue Tags — Make Your Dialogue Shine What Are Dialogue Tags and When Is It Best to Use Them? People, meaning writers, seem to mess this up a whole lot. In an attempt to sound “writerly” or make it appear as if they are experienced authors, they use ridiculous dialogue tags when they shouldn’t. If…
Compare to and Compare With Some authors claim that compare to versus compare with is a useless argument–that they mean essentially the same thing, but this is not supported by actual data. The verb compare has several different meanings, some of which take the preposition “to”, while the others take “with”: Compare A to B…
When to Use “Of” — and When Not To Some people say it’s easy to know when to use of; others say it’s easier to know when not to use of. For one thing, I often see the phrase off of used, and I can’t think of a single example when it would be appropriate unless…
Communication or Communications Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see the following listed as requirements on a job description: candidate must possess good oral and written communications skills. But is it communication or communications. What’s wrong with that? Nothing is wrong with the requested requirement, but it should have read, candidate must possess…
The Importance of Punctuation Parentheses ( ) — and when to use them. I’m guessing most of you know the way to use parentheses, but you might be surprised at some of the rules, especially the ones about how to punctuate them. Let’s take a look. The importance of punctuation is…well, important. I know what…
Wordiness Communication is so important in today’s world, that I’m always puzzled by the terrible misuse of the language. Many people seem to go out of their way to make things sound complicated; in fact, the legal and insurance businesses do it on purpose, I’m sure. They fill their documents and contracts with wordiness so…
Grammar Doesn’t Matter—or Does It? 17 Time-Consuming Words/Phrases That Make You Look Like An Ass (And, waste your time) There are a lot of people who like to sound intelligent, but at the same time the speak as if grammar doesn’t matter. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to sound intelligent, but they go about it…
Absolutes: Absolutes are everywhere. Many of you remember The Princess Bride and the Spaniard uttering his now-famous line””You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. How can we ever forget Vizzini’s (Wallace Shawn) use of the word, inconceivable or Mad Max (Billy Crystal) pronouncing the Spaniard’s friend,…
Poisonous or Venomous? Sorry it has been so long between posts, but I had the unfortunate luck to have experienced two heart attacks and two strokes last year, and all within a few weeks. And no, they weren’t the result of a poisonous or venomous snake. It kept me in the hospital for four months,…
Words That People Misuse Have you ever heard someone say “ain’t”, and thought—they should improve their grammar? Most of us have probably thought that at some point. But perhaps we shouldn’t judge too harshly, because there are many words that are misused on a daily basis. They might not seem as bad as ain’t, but…