Sloppy, Impossible Writing
I’m reading the online news this morning, and one of the stories presents me with the following two sentences … sentences which are so badly written that I wonder how the writer made it out of journalism school! Can you pinpoint the problems and fix them? Problem Sentence 1: A widow is suing Petsmart Inc, […]
ETAOIN SHRDLU
Do you know what it is? “Etaoin shrdlu” is a nonsensical phrase used to indicate nonsense or gibberish. It originated with the Linotype compositor, whose keyboard was set up with the letters in order of frequency of use in the language. The twelve most commonly used letters in the English language are (in order) e, […]
Subject-Verb Agreement With Intervening Prepositional Phrases
A fancy title for a simple concept. Another blogger asked the Grammar Guru, “Will you please teach people about proper subject-verb agreement — especially in cases where the subject may seem to be plural, but really isn’t . . . as in a flock of seagulls? I am getting quite sick of seeing things such […]
And the Answer Is….
Yesterday, I said, “One of these things just doesn’t belong here… come on, can you tell me which one…. point, bang, cow, query…And bonus points to anyone who knows why the other three are related.” Most of you easily figured out that “cow” was the oddball. But I think many of you were stumped by […]
One of these things just doesn’t belong here…
come on, can you tell me which one…. point, bang, cow, query …………………………………………………………………………. And bonus points to anyone who knows why the other three are related.
I Warned You It Was a Trick Question…
Ricky got it: the difference between the words stalactite and stalagmite is the spelling. This was just a little teaser to illustrate the importance of using the correct words to convey your meaning. Most people (myself included, the first time this was asked of me) assume that you want to know the difference between the […]
A Little Brain-Teaser
What’s the difference between the words stalactite and stalagmite? This is a trick question.