Aug 3, 2007 · The rule of putting a period at the end of every thought would be simpler, except that in English, we’re allowed to include more than one thought in the same sentence. These thoughts are …

May 6, 2013 · Which symbol should be used with numbers: a hyphen (-), or an en dash (–)? The question may seem trivial -- a dash is a dash, right? -- but using the correct

Two words that sometimes get confused are “disparate” and “desperate”. They have quite different meanings, but they can sound very similar in some accents, and if you’re using autocorrect, you …

May 19, 2009 · The Washington State University language site says: These two spellings [cannot/can not] are largely interchangeable, but by far the most common is “cannot” and you should probably …

Sep 14, 2011 · The English language includes an interesting category of words and phrases called contronyms (also spelled contranyms, or referred to as autoantonyms) --

Is “math” or “maths” the correct word to use as the shortened or colloquial form of the word mathematics? The answer is that it depends on where you are.

Jul 3, 2007 · In the post Show, Don’t Tell, I mentioned dialogue as one of the ways you can “show” your reader what’s happening in a scene. Effective dialogue is an essential part of both fiction and …

Writers like to sprinkle their work with subordinate clauses because they add variety to sentence structure. A reading diet too heavy with simple sentences or

Jun 9, 2008 · If you work in an office, you probably write emails every day – to colleagues, to your boss, to clients. Even if you’re still at college, you’ll need to email

Sep 8, 2016 · Parentheses serve several specific functions, but their general purpose is to set a grammatical unit of content off from the surrounding text. The