Nominalization (Vague, Wordy Sentences)
When it comes to writing, less is often better. Writers can avail themselves of several strategies for more succinct writing, and avoiding nominalization—forming a noun from other parts of speech—is one of them. Nouns can be made from both verbs and adjectives, but...
Myth Rules: Eight So-Called Rules to Ignore
My first exposure to the phrase “myth rules” was the use of that expression in Edgar H. Schuster’s 2003 book (which I highly recommend), Breaking the Rules: Liberating Writers through Innovative Grammar Instruction. But long before I discovered Schuster’s list of...
It’s or Its? They’re or Their? You’re or Your? Who’s or Whose?
In the past we’ve discussed the confusion surrounding plurals and possessives (should we write “Happy holidays from the Smith’s” or “the Smiths”?). Making that distinction is arguably one of the trickier issues in English usage. Another is confusion about commonly...
Faulty Comparisons
A faulty comparison is among a host of other issues that can affect the clarity of our writing: elsewhere in this archive, for example, we talk about avoiding vague pronoun references (in particular the vague which) and about using transitions effectively to improve...
Possessive Case before a Gerund
Before we can use the possessive case before a gerund, we first have to recognize whether we are dealing with a gerund (which functions like a noun) or a participle (which functions as an adjective). And therein lies the rub. Participles and gerunds look and sound the...
Commas between Adjectives: How to Recognize Coordinate Adjectives
The comma is perhaps the trickiest mark of punctuation to teach and to learn, largely because we seem to have multiple exceptions for every rule. Elsewhere on this site we have written about the Oxford (serial) comma, a usage issue hotly debated in both linguistic and...
Commas between Adjectives: How to Recognize Coordinate Adjectives
The comma is perhaps the trickiest mark of punctuation to teach and to learn, largely because we seem to have multiple exceptions for every rule. Elsewhere on this site we have written about the Oxford (serial) comma, a usage issue hotly debated in both linguistic and...
Less or Fewer
Other articles on this site address confusing word pairs, including effect and affect, sit and set, lay and lie, and bad and badly. Here we address the confusion that can arise when we have to decide whether to use less or fewer. We need to look no farther than the...
Which or That? (And Punctuating All Relative Clauses)
Have you ever been stuck trying to decide whether to use which or that? While both pronouns can be used in other constructions, the confusion usually arises when they are being used as relative pronouns to introduce adjective (or relative) clauses. In the examples...
