Did you know that if a person has only two children, neither child should be described as the oldest or the youngest ? This usage mistake, which reveals a failure to understand the difference between comparative and superlative modifiers, is very common—and it’s...
Did You Say What You Think You Said? Misplaced Participles Recently, in part one of our series on misplaced modifiers, we explored how word order can affect the clarity of a sentence. That post looked at familiar one-word modifiers such as only and almost, and it also...
One noteworthy characteristic of effective writers is their logical and strategic arrangement of words. They know that to convey their messages accurately, their sentences must be clear and unambiguous. They also know that careless word order—in particular, the...
When we think of conjunctions, most of us think of single words: and, but, therefore, although, and the rest of the coordinating, adverbial, and subordinating conjunctions. But when conjunctions work in pairs, we call them correlatives because they link two...
Elsewhere on this site, we discuss the importance of parallel structure in vertical (bulleted) lists. But two or more parts of a sentence, clause, or phrase should be grammatically parallel even without bullets (or numbers or letters). This article focuses on parallel...
Have you landed on this page to “try to” improve your understanding of English grammar and usage—or to “try and” do so? Either way, you’ve come to the right place. The focus here is on whether “try to” and “try and” are both considered correct and are, thus,...
