by Nancy Tuten | Jul 25, 2019
With the possible exception of the Oxford/Harvard/serial comma, very few usage issues elicit responses as passionate as the topic of punctuating with quotation marks. American vs. British Conventions If I were in charge of writing the rules about the use of quotation...
by Nancy Tuten | Jul 11, 2019
In another article, we address the problem that arises when people try to use apostrophes to make words (especially names) plural. Here we are dealing with words—both singular and plural—that actually do need to be possessive and thus need apostrophes: Where do they...
by Nancy Tuten | Jun 21, 2019
Even skilled writers sometimes get confused about when to use the adjective bad and the adverb badly. Which of These Sentences Use Bad and Badly Appropriately? Our stock performed badly last year. Tim delegates badly. We felt badly about our stock’s performance...
by Nancy Tuten | Jun 14, 2019
This article focuses on abbreviations for two Latin phrases. We often see i.e. and e.g. used incorrectly (and illogically), so it’s easy to get them mixed up. (Elsewhere on this site, we have articles on many confusing word pairs, such as effect and affect, lay...
by Nancy Tuten | Jun 6, 2019
I hope I am dead and gone when it happens, but I fully realize that one day the word whom will be designated by dictionaries as archaic, a relic from a bygone time. Languages are dynamic, and as fewer people make the distinction between the nominative who and the...
