Do outsiders have a positive visitor experience when attending one of your public business meetings? Do you even know? Have you ever attended a business networking event where you knew very few people . . . maybe no one? How…
Anagrams
Did you ever play anagrams when you were a kid? You know, rearranging letters in a word to make another one? They were lots of fun — for some of us, anyway — and they did teach an important lesson:…
Homophones Lea — Leaf
The homophones lea — leaf are among today’s tricky words. Yes, it’s Tuesday, and that means another edition of the Tuesday Tricksters, words called homophones that sound the same as another one (or nearly so, anyway) but mean something different…
Larva — Ley
Don’t you (ewe) love how Ms. Jenkins, the teacher who wrote the above note, thinks? It’s the same way (weigh) I (eye) try to (too, two) help my readers remember the perils of following spellcheck too closely; it only…
It Takes a Village …
Are you familiar with the expression “It takes a village to raise a child”? Well, this is a quick story of a village that changed a life forever, although it isn’t about a child. All my life I’ve been an…
Fun With Words!
A friend — Sherryl Perry — sent me this list three years ago, and I just found it again because I was updating my “Brush Up on Your Communication Skills” workbook, and I needed a couple of silly quotations at…
Lain — Laps
Here (hear) are more tricky words for (fore, four) your learning pleasure! I (eye) call them tricky, but (butt, butte) they’re (there, their) usually referred to (two, too) as homophones. Smart writers take great (grate) care while writing because…
Apostrophes Mark the Spot!
Apostrophes mark the spot, even when it’s the wrong one! Can you easily spot the four errors in the header picture? While there are differences in all the versions of “English” around the world, most English speakers and writers can…
We Have Our Hats
What does “we have our hats” actually mean? Well, to me it means “we have enough.” Growing up in a family that owned and ran a few small women’s clothing stores in the 1950s and ’60s, I often wondered why…
Fun With Jeopardy!
I love Jeopardy! I really, really LOVE this show! I don’t know if it’s shown anywhere except the U.S., but I hope it is. The premise of the show is that the contestants (and everyone watching) are given the answers,…
Laager — Lade
Here’s another edition of Tuesday Tricksters, all in an attempt to keep us sharp as we write in English (American English, anyway). These words defy spellcheck’s ability to help writers, as they are REAL words, but too many times they’re…
More “Cross” Words
Longtime readers of my posts know that I love words, and I love crossword puzzles. But I have to say, sometimes I wonder how or why a certain word got used in one of the puzzles. Sometimes I’ve never seen…
Knead . . . Knob
Here we go again, dear readers! More Tuesday Tricksters (aka homophones) to delight and bedevil us (if we’re not carefully reading what we wrote, that is). These words have the power to make any one of us look bad, so…
Where have all the hyphens gone? Long time passing . . .
First posted December 2014 . . . but from what I keep seeing, it’s worth reminding everyone who uses the AMERICAN grammar system of the basic uses for hyphens! ************** I ask because using hyphens seems to have become a…
Aging
I woke up this morning. That’s a VERY good thing. I woke up with a few aches and pains. That’s also a VERY good thing. Why? Because although I’m in the last third of my life — or on the…
What is “Smart,” Anyway?
A few days ago, I remarked in an LI group I belong to that I needed some help understanding how to send Neil Hughes a voice message on my iPhone. Others were able to do that, but I couldn’t figure…
Are Your American Grammar Skills strong?
Are your American grammar skills strong? The quiz shown below is on the first page of my Brush Up on Your American Grammar Skills workbook, and we start every class with it. It’s the students’ first glimpse of what is in…
Are We Being Clear?
A few days ago, I posted the picture shown below on LinkedIn, just for fun. I got a lot of comments, and a few readers weren’t sure what the sentence could mean just by stressing a different word each time.…
Wednesday Words & Woes: Words That DO Exist
It is way too hot to think heavy thoughts here in the northeast part of the U.S. We are sweltering under extremely high temps and humidity. So for today’s post, I pulled a page out of my American Grammar long…
Jinks – Karat
Once again here is an edition of Tuesday Tricksters! I keep publishing these because I know how hard it can be to remember all the variations of words that sound alike (or nearly so), but aren’t spelled the same and…
Jalousie — Jibe
Here is the latest installment of Tuesday Tricksters, words (homophones) that sound alike (or nearly so), but mean something different and are spelled differently. Remember that spellcheck will not help you here; if you spell the word correctly, spellcheck won’t…
The Grammar Goddess “Fesses” Up
I had no idea I would become the Grammar Goddess. It just sort of happened. One minute I was working as an executive assistant, then I was teaching topics I knew almost nothing about for an international seminar firm and…
Innocence – Its
Good Tuesday morning, folks! Here’s the latest installment of my Tuesday Tricksters series – in a new format. Because I’m now publishing on several platforms, I’m trying to make it easier for anyone reading this post to see the words…
Forming Contractions of Words & Figures
Good Monday morning to everyone! This is a post to remind everyone about forming contractions of words in English. English allows us to take two words and create a shorter form called a contraction. These forms are seen as less…
Impatience – Independence
Here is the latest installment of a series I started a year ago to help remind all my connections of the dangers of believing in spellcheck. Don’t get me wrong — I LOVE spellcheck! It has saved me many times…
Revisiting Hyphens
There are a lot of punctuation marks that are misunderstood and mishandled — think of the semicolon — but none so truly lacking in understanding as the hyphen. It’s such a small mark that its importance can be overlooked. And although…
Thursday Thoughts: Give Your Readers a Break! Please!
Here on LI, I am part of a group / thread that is now talking about how long a blog post “should” be. The range mentioned is from micro (250-500 words) to macro/very long (1,200-5,000+ words), with several weighing in…
Capitalizing Words After a Colon in a Sentence
To capitalize or not to capitalize: That is the question! With apologies to William Shakespeare and Hamlet, I’m sure you get the point. Many of us have wondered about this without ever coming to a decision; it seems like…
More Words I Never Knew Existed!
Living in eastern Massachusetts, I (along with thousands of others) read The Boston Globe newspaper and its magazine section every Sunday. There is always at least one interesting–sometimes really tough–crossword puzzle to solve, and sometimes I don’t even know the…
Does Good Grammar Matter?
In this day and age, many folks wonder: does good grammar matter? This post came about thanks to an article that Maggi Kirkbride found, read, and shared — and tagged me with. You can read it here. Thanks, Maggi! The article…
Passed & Past
Today’s edition of Wednesday Words & Woes comes thanks to Paul Croubalian, who suggested the words, two of the tougher ones to learn because they’re true homophones. And as we all know, spellcheck will not help us here. The…
Parentheses ( ), Brackets [ ], & Braces { }
I was looking up ways to explain (in my Brush Up on Your Business Writing workbook) how these three different punctuation marks highlight information, and I realized I had NO idea when we are supposed to use braces. So I…
Assure, Ensure, Insure
******************* It’s funny how words can get confused in our minds, isn’t it? These three — almost homophones with similar meanings — are often misused. Let’s see if we can finally get a grip on them, OK? First, the words…
To, Too, Two
Sometimes I get lucky and a bunch of readers ask for help on the same homophones — you know, those pesky words that sound the same (or nearly so) but are spelled differently and have different meanings. Quite a few…
Another Pop Quiz!
*********** Yes, it’s quiz time again! I know many of you actually read my posts and perhaps even try to make some changes (if you’re using American grammar), so I hope this little quiz is easy for you! FYI: There…
Pried and Pride
Yes, these words sound alike; they’re homophones, after all! But they mean two different things, and since I recently saw one of them in a post when the other one was meant, I figured we might as well take a…
Using They, Their, or Them, Part 2
Last week I published a post that has garnered a lot of attention — some positive, some not so much. But everyone had something to say about the reality of using a plural pronoun in a sentence that has no…
Compose and Comprise
OK, folks — fasten your seat belts! It’s gonna be a bumpy ride here. I’m about to take away a favorite phrase you may be writing or saying, one you probably have never given any real thought to. You may…
Gender-Neutral Pronoun Usage — Some Possibilities Other Than “They” or “Their”
Years ago, I remember talking with a friend who was (and still is) deep into technology. I admired her ability to keep up with it, because technology moves so quickly, and I also remember mentioning something about being happy…
Are You Practicing Comma Sutra?
Comma sutra is a funny term — more or less based on “kama sutra” — and designed to get your attention. For whatever reason, many writers never learned the simple trick of knowing when and why to use a comma…
Everyday and Every Day
Who is NOT familiar with this brand? Raise your hand . . . Hmmm. I don’t see many hands up, probably because for a long time, the Martha Stewart Everyday brand was ubiquitous. You couldn’t open a magazine or a…
Parentheses With Other Punctuation
Following up on posts using colons, ellipsis marks, and semicolons in sentences, here’s a quick primer on using parentheses, which generally enclose nonessential (although important) information. And please remember: The examples below show how to punctuate using parentheses. In many of these examples,…
Perspective
A friend on Facebook posted this recently, and it got me thinking . . . sometimes it does take a thunk on the head from the universe (or from our guardian angel) to help us see more clearly . .…
Contranyms, Contronyms, Autoantonyms
Just when you thought it was safe to use the English language . . . I show you an entire classification of words with two meanings that are opposite to each other! While each word may have other meanings, especially…
Dangling Participles
Most regular readers of my blog know how much I love injecting humor into lessons. The old adage of a spoonful of sugar is really true! A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down! And humor is everywhere if…
The Dreaded Comma Splice
Happy Monday once again, dear colleagues. And since it’s Monday, it must be American Grammar Checkup day. At the risk of belaboring a point, I keep noticing in many professional documents two sentences separated by only a comma. I’m certain…
Our Big Blue Marble and “Human Correctness”
There’s a truly negative vibe in America right now that some of our “President wannabes” are promoting nonstop. And one of the ideas that keeps coming up — on the political front and others — is the unwillingness to do…
A Rare Gift
Years ago, a wonderful man gave me a rare gift, a priceless one one that took me years to recognize and use. He was easily the friendliest person I’d ever known. No matter where we were – a restaurant, an…
Lead and Led
English is really tough language. I realize many others may be as well, but I only know this one (and good for all of you who manage more than one!). A while ago I published a post on the most…
Readers’ Questions
Over the last few months, I have received many questions about grammar and writing. I’m including some of the questions in this week’s grammar checkup. From Nicki, a fifth grade teacher: I have a question regarding using apostrophes in cursive…