“Parentheses” — When and How to Use Them I’m guessing most of you know how to use parentheses, but you may be surprised at some of the rules regarding how to punctuate them and when to use them. Let’s take a look. The spelling of the word itself is the first thing to look at….
Do You Need an Editor? Writing a book is easy. Writing a good book is much more difficult. And no matter how good a story you tell, in order for it to be made into a good book, it needs to be edited, and not self-edited. I have seen a few people who were able…
Dilemma or Catch-22 What is a dilemma? Dilemma is one of the rare words that is so specific that it denotes the precise meaning — at least the original definition does. Let’s take a look. Many of the dictionaries did a good job of defining the true meaning of this, and most without waffling. Vocabulary.com…
How to Write Plainly Not too long ago, writing was the primary means of communicating so writing plainly was more than just important, it was imperitave. People sent letters to family, friends, lovers, and others. Writing was also used to conduct business, from initial introductions to finalizing a deal. How to write plainly was taught…
How to Write Good Dialogue All writers know that writing good dialogue is one of the factors to a good book, but how to write good dialogue is interpreted differently by different people. Dialogue is also written differently depending on the writer. Some writers use stilted, formal language, and some use a lot of slang…
Meaning of Cognizant and Meaning of Prophylactic In my continuing quest to make note of words that have jumped to the forefront during this pandemic, I’ve identified two more offenders—cognizant and prophylactic. Don’t get me wrong; the words aren’t at fault, they’re fine words. I blame the people using them. The reporters, doctors, and analysts…
Plethora—It’s Not What You May Think If you listen to people speak, you’re bound to hear the word plethora used sooner or later. And when you do, it will probably be used erroneously. Last year, I decided to do an informal self-conducted poll, and, in a thirty-day span, I heard the word used eleven times….
When to Use Mitigate You might recall I mentioned that during any time of crisis, the not-so-often-heard words come out of the woodwork. We discussed the prevalence of proximity or should I say the misuse of close proximity earlier, but it’s long past time to delve into when to use mitigate and mitigation. Nowadays it…
Grammar Doesn’t Have to Be Difficult Grammar is difficult for a lot of people, but it doesn’t need to be. The biggest hurdle to learning grammar is the terminology. Most books, and most teachers, use grammatical terms when they’re not necessary. While researching my book, I ran across the following terms on more than a…
Eg/Ie/Ergo/Et Al/Etc. There are some people, especially those in the legal and insurance professions (as well as writers), who love to use Latin abbreviations or Latin expressions. There’s nothing wrong with that, but, far too often, I have seen them used improperly. The problem with using Latin expressions is if you’re going to use them—many…