by Nancy Tuten | May 30, 2019
When two words come together to create a single new idea that expresses meaning different from that of either of the individual words, the result is a compound word. Sometimes compound words include a hyphen (not to be confused with em dashes or en dashes, which we...
by Nancy Tuten | May 2, 2019
Some so-called “rules” of grammar don’t hold up under careful scrutiny. Such is the case with the oft-repeated statement “never end a sentence with a preposition.” In some cases ending a sentence with a preposition is inappropriate...
by Nancy Tuten | Apr 11, 2019
Sometimes we aren’t careful with the placement of words in our sentences and thus aren’t as clear as we could be. Can you spot potential ambiguity caused by the placement of the word only in any of these sentences? The budget can only be balanced if...
by Nancy Tuten | Apr 5, 2019
Elsewhere on this site, we address confusion with myself and other reflexive pronouns. This article focuses specifically on knowing when to use I or me. Consider these sentences, which we will address in the discussion below: Harry and I will take the annual report to...
by Nancy Tuten | Jun 3, 2018
One of our newsletter subscribers wrote to ask us which phrase—”the reason is because” or “the reason is that”—is correct. Here are two examples of those constructions in a sentence: The reason we were late is because there was an accident on...
