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, […]
Stop It, Stop It, STOP IT !
The Grammar Guru cannot take it anymore! “Low and behold,” “roads to hoe,” “lines to tow,” “here, here!” and “he has more then me.” WHAT is this world coming to that even simple, everyday expressions cannot be accurately spelled? The phrase, dear friends, is Lo, and behold! As is “lo, the angel appeared unto Mary.” […]
Who’s vs. Whose
There’s a battle going on in the world of words, and heaven only knows who’s going to win! Everywhere I go, I see “who’s” being used as a possessive — I don’t know why; it’s just plain silly. Actually, I have a pretty good guess about why it’s happening. People don’t understand apostrophes. I’ve talked […]
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 […]
Towing Lines and Hoeing Roads … What ARE We Coming to?
Two quick little corrections for some frequently misquoted idioms. One does not “tow the line;” one “toes the line.” This idiom refers to runners at the beginning of a race. They line up on the start line with their toes on or slightly behind the line. It may also refer to sailors standing in formation. […]
However Do You Punctuate “However”!?
The word however is a funny, tricksy word. It serves many purposes and is punctuated differently for each. Let’s examine it closely. When it’s used as an intensive form of how, the word however does not have any special puncutation associated with it. Example: Miss Mary jumped up, startled. “However did you get into the […]
It Seems That the Who/Whom Dilemma Still Affects Some of Us…
Who is the subjective or nominative case of the word; in plain English, who acts as a subject or predicate nominative…most of the time. I don’t know who you are. Who steals my purse steals trash. Whom is objective case; that is, it must be an object. It will follow a preposition or a verb […]
What? Your Sense of Touch Is Impaired? or Are You Just Guilty?
A very common mistake that a lot of people make (besides writing redundant stuff like the ten words I just wrote) is to say “I feel badly about that.” It seems that this would be correct, but it isn’t. The reason is that little verb “feel.” “Feel” is a funny word. It can mean something […]
Help Stamp Out Apostrophe Abuse!
Never use the apostrophe (that’s the little mark like this ‘ ) to make words plural. It’s wrong; it’s annoying, and it makes your writing look amateurish. The plural of apple is not apple’s—it’s apples! When you see ‘s at the end of a word, you should automatically think one of two things: possession or […]
And I Wondered: Is It All Right to Start My Sentence That Way?
An erudite reader has asked my opinion on the permissibility of beginning a sentence with a conjunction. This is an interesting case, as it’s one of the few times when I will tell you that your high school grammar teacher was wrong: It is not always wrong to start a sentence with and, but, or […]