Uncover your smothered verbs! Why? Because you’ll shorten and sharpen your writing, and your readers will get more out of the experience. So what’s a smothered verb, you ask? It’s a verb that we changed into a noun, a word…
3 Ways to Almost Guarantee Your Writing Will Make a Bad First Impression
I’m a copyeditor, meaning I read and edit others’ words to help them look and sound as smart as they are. Over the last 25 years, I have seen many ways of succeeding and, sadly, a few things that almost…
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.…
Unnecessary Redundancies
As a corporate trainer who teaches communication skills including American grammar and business writing, I am always encouraging my students to cut words from their writing. I use my KISS Principle in many different ways, always striving for conciseness, which…
The KISS Principle — My Way
The KISS Principle — My Way Many of us know the KISS acronym, which is too often used with these words: Keep It Simple, Stupid. You’ve heard it or seen it, right? Faithful readers of my blogs know how much…
Believe It or Not: Apostrophes #3
For those who saw my recent posts on the wrong usage of apostrophes, here’s another one on apostrophes, this time using them in contractions. Many of us create contractions in words without thinking, right? We often write “don’t” or “can’t”…
How 3 Strangers “Created” the Grammar Goddess
Did you know that 3 strangers helped to “create” the Grammar Goddess, and that’s how I got started in the training business? It was partly pure dumb luck and partly their efforts, even if they never intended it! It was…
Agile Adverbs
In English grammar, parts of speech are grouped by type, and it seems as though adverbs are one of the least understood of them all. (See all eight at the end of this post.) Adverbs are hard-working words that modify…
English is a “Confuzzling” Language!
I am always amazed that anyone can learn English — with all its nuances, regionalisms, and jargon — especially considering how many words have multiple meanings. In this wonderfully silly cartoon, the focus is on “make” and “go,” each of…
Can You Imagine This?
Do you remember a news story a few years ago about two 28-year-old young men who drove around the country correcting grammatical errors on public and private signs? They were called “Typo Vigilantes.” Unfortunately, they were not well received in…
No Apostrophes in Plurals!
I see this time and time again: someone takes an ordinary word and adds an apostrophe and s, thinking the word is now plural. NO. That’s not the way we do it. In English, we create regular plurals of words…
The Grammar Goddess is NOT Passionate About Grammar!
True. I’m not passionate about grammar. Yes, I teach it, but I’m not passionate about the topic by itself. How can anyone get passionate about colons, commas, dashes – or quotation marks? Grammar is a tool, one among many, and…