Nauseous, Nauseated, or Nauseating?
If you feel as though your most recent meal may soon make a re-appearance, would you say, “I feel nauseous”? If so, it might be helpful to know the “rest of the story” about nauseous, nauseated, and nauseating. Consider the use of nauseous or nauseated in each of...
Include or Including: How Do Those Words Affect What Goes in a List?
The definition of the verb “to include” is not the same as the definition of the verb “to be.” By definition, if we use the word include or including before a list, we are telling the reader that the list is not exhaustive. What the Dictionaries Tell Us Reputable...
Capitalizing Words in the Titles of Publications
Elsewhere on this site we have addressed two other issues involving capitalization: knowing when to capitalize people’s positions and job titles and recognizing when a noun is common, not proper, and therefore should not be capitalized. This article focuses on knowing...
Bulleted (aka Vertical) Lists
Hardly a week goes by that we are not asked a question about vertical lists (often referred to as bulleted lists): When are bullets more appropriate than numbers or letters in a vertical list? What do we mean when we say that the items in a list must be parallel? How...
A or An?
One subscriber wrote to ask how to determine whether to use a or an in front of a noun. Like many of us, he had been taught simply to put a in front of consonants and an in front of vowels, but he realized that this oversimplified rule didn't work in every case....
NOT ALL ARE and ALL ARE NOT Are Not the Same
Precision in language is critical. If we misplace even a single word or phrase, we risk changing the meaning of our sentence significantly. Such is the case with the difference between the phrases "not all are" and "all are not." Often we hear the expressions "All...
Characters and Symbols Not on Keyboards
Our word processing software and enhanced keyboards can work magic, especially in regard to inserting characters and symbols that aren't on our Roman alphabet keyboards. Lawyers and legal secretaries must type a section symbol in legal citations, whereas bankers deal...
Split Infinitives: Are They Really So Bad?
Most of us were taught never to split infinitives, but writers have been splitting them anyway—even long before Star Trek provided us with perhaps the most famous split infinitive, “to boldly go." Those of us taught to regard the split infinitive as anathema might...
Pro Tips for Professional Writing
Web content, emails, newsletters, and social media posts require us to write well. Small business owners often can’t afford to hire professional writers and editors, yet we know that our words matter. Here are a few pro tips for professional writing. First, tackle the...