When You’re comforting an editor, the meme goes, tell her “There, their, they’re.” True? Perhaps. Correct usage may not be the antidote for all editorial ills?That’s what caffeine is for?but using there, their, and they’re correctly can go a long way. This week’s Toolbox shows you how. Their The word their is a possessive pronoun,… Read more »
“I don’t know whom I’m going to give the role to.” “That’s the ladder he walked under.” “It was a foolish thing to argue about.” “What should I end this sentence with?” What indeed? These sentences all end with a preposition, something that makes many English teachers cringe. But why is this considered unacceptable?and what’s… Read more »
Last week we returned to the grammar books for a quick refresher on prepositions. To briefly recap: prepositions are words that describe the relationship between a noun or pronoun (object) and another word in a sentence. Prepositions are almost always found in word groupings called prepositional phrases; this week we’ll take a quick look at… Read more »
Sometimes understanding a grammatical rule requires knowledge of terms you haven’t seen since fourth grade. If You’re shaky on your grammar basics and want to refresh yourself, the occasional “Bits and Pieces” segments in the Toolbox will help jog your memory and make you comfortable with the terms you’ll need to understand some of the… Read more »
Did you get your poetry on this year? This past month the writing community celebrated National Poetry Month, with libraries, schools, and literary organizations holding events to promote poetry appreciation. But, if you missed it, You’re not alone. The truth is that for most adults, poetry is something that was left behind in high school…. Read more »
Shakespeare in the park . . . or on the stage. In ruined buildings . . . or across the grounds of Alcatraz. With a sci-fi twist . . . or in the Wild West. In Elizabethan costume, modern dress, or just with plain cast t-shirts. Feeling a little like Sam-I-Am? Much like green eggs… Read more »
What’s in a name?or a word? Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? To what extent does language influence our perception, and vice versa? The answer can be found in etymology, the study of the history and origin of words. ?Language is fossil poetry,? wrote Emerson, but etymology’s more than just a… Read more »
The past four weeks we’ve explored the possessive case in great detail. We’ve learned the general rules: for singular and plural common nouns; for proper nouns; studied the difference among plural, possessive, and plural possessive; learned style-based exceptions to the general rules for certain types of nouns; and examined compound possessives and joint possession. Now… Read more »
The past few weeks we’ve spent exploring the possessive case. We’ve looked at singular common nouns, plural common nouns, and proper nouns. Now It’s time to get into some of the tricky little exceptions?the ones that stump writers the most. This week we’ll discuss how to handle compound hyphenated words and joint possessives, and the… Read more »
For the past two weeks we’ve discussed forming the possessive with common nouns, both singular and plural. In this week’s Toolbox, we’ll look at a different type of noun?the proper noun?and how it forms the possessive case. General rule for singular proper nouns Proper nouns are most easily recognizable as the names of specific people… Read more »