A and An Alumnus, Alumni, Alumna, Alumnae Anxious and Eager Anymore and Everyday or Any More and Every Day? Apostrophes to Make Words Possessive (Even the Tricky Ones Ending in “S”) Apostrophes: Is It a Possessive or an Attributive Noun? Bad or Badly Begging the Question Between and Among Bi and Semi as Prefixes Bring and Take Bulleted (aka Vertical) Lists Can a Sentence Start with And or But? Capitalizing Positions and People’s Titles Capitalizing Words in Titles Capitalizing Words: Proper vs. Common Nouns Characters and Symbols Not on Keyboards Colons (and How They Differ from Semicolons) Comma before and (and Other Coordinating Conjunctions) Commas between Adjectives: How to Recognize Coordinate Adjectives Comparatives and Superlatives Criteria, Media, and Memorandums Drug and Dragged Effect and Affect Either-Or, Neither-Nor, and Other Correlatives Ellipses Ending Sentences with Prepositions Essay Writing: The Five-Paragraph Myth Faulty Comparisons “GET OFF MY LAWN!” A Curmudgeon’s Rant about Sloppy Writing and Thinking Good and Well as Modifiers Here and There Home In On or Hone In On: Which Is Logical? Hyphenated Adjectives Hyphenating Compound Words Hyphens, Em Dashes, and En Dashes: When to Use Them and How to Type Them I or Me i.e. and e.g. Include or Including: How Do Those Words Affect What Goes in a List? Irregardless It’s or Its? They’re or Their? You’re or Your? Who’s or Whose? Less or Fewer Lie or Lay? Like and As Loan and Lend Making Collective Nouns Agree with Verbs and Pronouns Making Verbs Agree with Who, Which, and That Myself (and Other Reflexive Pronouns) Myth Rules: Eight So-Called Rules to Ignore Names: Making Them Plural and NOT Possessive Nauseous, Nauseated, or Nauseating? Neither, Either, and Each: Three Tricky Indefinite Pronouns Nominalization (Vague, Wordy Sentences) Not All Are and All Are Not Are Not the Same One Space or Two after Periods? Only Can’t Go Just Anywhere Oxford (or Serial) Commas: Using a Comma before and in a List Parallel Structure Parallel Structure in Lists (Embedded) Parallel Structure with Vertical Lists (Bullets, Numbers, Letters) Parentheses and Punctuation Passive Voice and Active Voice Possessive Case before a Gerund Possessives: Joint or Separate Ownership Quotation Marks and Punctuation: Inside or Outside? Semicolons Sit, Set, and Seat Split Infinitives: Are They Really So Bad? Style Manuals vs. Dictionaries Subjunctive Mood The Reason Is Because vs. The Reason Is That They, Them, and Their Can Sometimes Be Singular Titles of Works: Italics or Quotation Marks? To Graduate, Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s Degree Transitions: Improving Clarity and Logical Flow Try to and Try and? Uncharted vs. Unchartered Using Numbers, including Percentages Verb Errors: Can Hardly vs. Can’t Hardly; Suppose To vs. Supposed To; Use To vs. Used to; Could Care Less vs. Couldn’t Care Less Verbs First: Targeting the Crucial Action What Exactly Is Grammar, Anyway? What We Wish Every First-Year College Student Knew Which Is a Pronoun, so It Needs an Antecedent Which or That? (And Punctuating All Relative Clauses) Who or Whom “You’re Still on My Lawn!”: Our Resident Curmudgeon Bemoans Six Lost Causes
