This post is a response to comments from readers about my use of “insure” in Editors insure content matches audience readiness for it. I’m using this as a teaching moment for my technical editing students so it might be too long for others. Skip ahead if you just want to get to shibboleths or white…
For National Grammar Day, I’m posting a slightly edited version of “Shibboleths and entering the professions,” which appeared on Pros Write back in 2012. I wrote the original in response to the raised eyebrows after I posted “Language choices can be unsuccessful — but never wrong.” For some readers, my belief that language can never…
Yesterday in “The big grammar quiz of 2014,” the UK’s Management Today published a terrific piece about grammar in workplace writing. Test yourself with their quiz. Then review your score with their key, which includes thoughtful and accurate explanations. If you rely on Strunk and White’s classic, The Elements of Style, you will resist those explanations. But…
I have been trying to avoid thinking about today’s “holiday,” but Nancy Friedman has captured my attention. Punctuation is indeed both relevant and interesting in today’s workplace. My own Nat'l Punctuation Day linkfest: punctuation in company names and logos. http://t.co/fFCEAorHZ7 @FYI @andcompany_ @sfciti — Nancy Friedman 🦗 (@Fritinancy) September 24, 2014
The digital world — including linguists everywhere — is rockin’ to Weird Al Yankovic‘s “Word Crimes,” a parody of the hit song “Blurred Lines.” He rants about those who don’t know when to use “fewer” instead of “less” or to use the apostrophe in “it’s.” It’s all in fun. Mostly. But those lyrics make clear people do judge us based on…
It’s hard for researchers to avoid lengthy noun phrases. Often those phrases are a jumble for readers to interpret without hyphens. I promised some guidance to the doctoral students in my seminar on scholarly communication this semester. Here goes . . . The topic of hyphens came up because, in the past couple of weeks, my…
Do you offer grammar advice to others? I urge you to read 12 mistakes nearly everyone who writes about grammar makes to insure you’re not repeating common mistakes. Jonathon Owen, blogger at Arrant Pedantry (and also a linguist, writer, and editor) knows what he’s talking about. To me, the most serious mistake self-proclaimed “specialists” make is…
‘Cause my day job kept me from blogging this week, I’m reprinting a wonderful article by James Harbeck: You’re using that dash wrong: A comprehensive guide to our language’s horizontal lines — from the humble hyphen to the three-em dash. It’s worth a few minutes! Published in The Week on September 10, 2013 Ah, the dash…
I’m guessing many of you don’t understand how a dictionary is created. It’s true of the vast majority of people — even highly literate ones. So here’s your chance to get educated about lexicography. That means dictionary-making. The misconception that dictionaries are authorities on language is pandemic. John McIntyre’s piece”You Could Look It Up” appeared…
Has anyone given you grief over splitting an infinitive in your writing? If so, they would claim “to better understand” is wrong because the adverb better appears between to and the verb understand. The “rule” to avoid splitting infinitives originated in the 18th century due to a faulty comparison of English with Latin. (For more…