Article Index

100% of these usages is wrong
conjugation, English grammar, grammar, numbers, percent, percentages, quantifiers, quantities, verbs

Among other things, it’s a sentence adverb
among other things, dangler, grammar

Apparently ignorance is in vogue at Slate
credit, editing, editors

An Appreciation of English: A language in motion
class, English history, English language history, English vowels, great vowel shift, language change, language deterioration, lexical change, long vowels, morphological change, morphology, Old English, phonetic profiling, proper English, reanalysis, Robert Lowth, semantic change, semantics, short vowels, sociolinguistics, sound change, standard English, syntactic change, syntax, word change

Are Latin words bad?
English, English words, Latin, Latin words, loan words

Are this kind of sentences wrong?
English grammar, English syntax, syntax, these kind, this kind

Are this sentence’s needs being met?
conjugation, English grammar, English syntax, syntax, verbs

Are you deranged?
to, writing, from…to, ranges, from, clichés, advertising, marketing, descriptions

Are you editor material?
editing, editors

Are you one of the only people bothered by this?
English grammar, one of the only

“Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide”
ambiguity, English grammar, headlines, news headlines

Blarney, baloney, and etymology
Daniel Cassidy, English, etymology, How the Irish Invented Slang, Irish, slang

Canada ≠ America
America, Americans, Canada, Canadians, North America

Can a metaphor be hyperbole too?
hyperbole, hyperbolic metaphor, metaphor

Chez what?
double prepositions, editing, prepositions, titles

Clichés and picturesque language
clichés, eggcorns, idioms, metaphors, The Spanner

Commas before quotes
commas, dialogue, English grammar, quotations, quoted material

Confident in or about?
confidence, confident, confident about, confident in

A convincing – or persuasive – argument?
editing, language change, language rules, linguistics

The Correction of Josef Stalin
editing, Robert Service, Stalin

Counterfactual or not?
conditional, counterfactual, English grammar, subjunctive

A couple things to know
a couple, a couple of, couple

Dear Kitty, Hi, Kitty, Love, Kitty
commas, correspondence, English grammar, letter writing, salutations, signatures

Don’t tell me no lies
double negatives, English grammar, English syntax, negative concord, Songs of Love and Grammar

E.g., this kind of thing, etc.
and so on, e.g., et cetera, etc., for example, for instance, i.e.

Each and every
each, English grammar, every, grammar, syntax

Each writer should remember this
each, grammar

Editor James Harbeck on titles and job descriptions before names
attributive nouns, modifiers, names, nonrestrictive modifiers, restrictive modifiers, titles

Email joke writers, please read this
email forwards, email jokes, forwards, humour, jokes

For a thousand years it’s good English, then it’s a comma splice?
adverbs, and then, but then, comma splice, conjunctions, English grammar, run-on sentences, then

For anyone who hadn’t noticed…
English grammar, English history, prescriptivism, proper English

Fulford fulminates – pfui.
apostrophe, apostrophes, English grammar, English punctuation, National Punctuation Day, punctuation, Robert Fulford

Fun with find & replace: trailing punctuation
bold, commas, find-and-replace, formatting, italics, Microsoft Word, MS Word, periods, search and replace, wild cards

Going all the way with statistics
statistics

Going forward, it’s an adverb
adverbs, English grammar, English syntax, going forward, grammar, sentence adverbs, syntax

Grammar Girl is not where it’s at
English grammar, English syntax, Grammar Girl, prepositions, syntax, where it’s at

Grammar Matters book review
English grammar, English syntax, grammar, Grammar Matters, Jila Ghomeshi, syntax

A grave case of synonym-itis
elegant variation, journalism, sing, synonyms, variation, writing

Help stop a word-lynching
etymology, picnic, racism

An historic(al) usage trend: a historical usage trend (part 1)
a historic, a historical, an historic, an historical, historic, historical, indefinite article

An historic(al) usage trend: a historical usage trend (full version)
a historic, a historical, an historic, an historical, historic, historical, indefinite article

How come it can’t be used?
combine together, concision, editing, English grammar, how come, why

How possessive should you be?
English grammar, genitive, of, possessive, prepositions

How to explain grammar
English grammar, English syntax, grammar, syntax

Hyphe-nation? Hyphen-ation?
American, British, English, hyphenation, spelling, syllables, word breaks

“I can do that!”
career, design, desktop publishing, editing, The Writers’ Community of Durham Region, work, writing

I’d say that if you want to, you can write it this way
appositives, commas, parentheticals, subordinate clauses, that

If I were using the subjunctive…
English, grammar, If I were, subjunctive, syntax

“I’m just saying…”
conversation, I’m just sayin’, I’m just saying, Just sayin’, pragmatics

I must disagree with whoever wrote that
editing, English grammar, grammar, relative pronouns, syntax, who, whoever, whom, whomever

Index, icon, symbol: a tale of abduction
C.S. Peirce, icon, index, indexes, indexing, Peirce, semiotics, symbol

In principio…
nouns, verbs, verbum, words

An Introduction to Sclgnqi: Pronunciation Guide
invented languages, phonemics, phonetics, Sclgnqi

Is she more knowledgeable than him?
comparative, conjunctions, English grammar, English syntax, syntax, than he, than her, than him, than I, than me, than she, than them, than they, than us, than we

It is not I, it’s me
conjugation, English grammar, English syntax, first person singular nominative, it is I, it’s me, nouns, pronouns, syntax, verbs

Jack Lyon is right too
commas, too

Laxity and language
academic writing, clarity, English grammar, formal English, grammar, language, laxity, linguistics, proper English

Let comma heads, as it were, prevail
commas

Let her who is without error…
grammar, he who is, him who is, let he who is without sin, let him who is without sin, syntax

Let’s be clear about something
ambiguity, clarity, Dalkey, editing, editors, Mima Simić, My Girlfriend

Licence to smear?
Broadcasting Act, Canada, ethics, falsehood, journalism, news truth, responsibility

The long and short of English vowels
English vowels, long vowels, phonology, short vowels, vowels

The madder matter of t’s and d’s
English pronunciation, flap, phonemics, phones, phonetics, phonology, sounds, t, tap

The majority of these second-guesses are wrong
collective nouns, collectives, majority are, majority is, quantifiers, remainder are, remainder is

Math… amazing
arithmetic, math, number puzzles, numbers, numeracy

My veil of tears: an eggcorn poem
eggcorn poem, eggcorns, English, idioms, poems, poetry

A naughty chemistry poem
chemistry, elements, humour, periodic table, poems, poetry, Songs of Love and Grammar, The elements of lust

A new way to be a complete loser
English grammar, English spelling, proper English, standard English, Twitter

Nothing to chauffeur a classiomatic
background speech sample, categorical perception, classiomatic, Duran Duran, lyrics, mishearing, more than just colour and shape, more to this kind of camouflage, speech perception, The Chauffeur

Now or immediately?
immediately, now

On editing versus linguistics
editing, linguistics, prescriptivism

One of the best poem
English grammar, English syntax, grammar, one of the, one of the best, syntax

One or two things about numbers
compound modifiers, English grammar, English syntax, number ranges, numbers, syntax

The onesies
aughties, decades, naughties, new decade, noughties, oh-ohs, onesies, oughties

Overwrought about overweight
bad grammar, emotional reactions to language, errors, grammar, noun conversions, overweight, prescriptivism

Peking, Beijing, whazzup?
Beijing, Chinese, Mandarin, Peking, Pinyin, pronunciation, transliteration, Wade-Giles, Yale

Presenting the future
English grammar, English syntax, future tense, grammar, inflections, present tense, syntax, tense

Repainting birds
dictionaries, dictionary, editing, not a word, words

Rule-bound tut-tutters?
editing, English grammar, rules

Sears and the cooperative principle
cooperative principle, pragmatics, principle of pertinence, sales, Sears

Semicolons are recess periods
colons, commas, English grammar, English punctuation, punctuation, semicolons, syntax

Sharpening and vowel shifts
contrast, edges, great vowel shift, perception, sharpening, speech perception, vowel shifts, vowels

Silly place name limericks
Bangkok, Báile Atha Cliath, Beijing, Bombay, Burma, Cirencester, Dublin, Godthab, Greenland, Ho Chi Minh City, Kalaallit Nunaat, Krung Thep, limericks, Mumbai, Myanmar, Nuuk, Peking, Rangoon, Saigon, Schuylkill, Worcester, Yangon

Singular or plural?
agreement, distributive, each, English grammar, English syntax, plural, singular, syntax

So why fund the arts, then?
arts funding, fine arts, politics

Streamkeepers of the language
English words, etymology, language change, language purity, language rules, nitty-gritty, picnic, streamkeepers

Such cases as these
English grammar, English syntax, grammar, such as, syntax

Tag-teaming without coordination
conjunctions, coordination, English grammar, English syntax

There’s a couple things about this…
a couple, a couple of, agreements, collective nouns, collectives, English grammar, grammar, nouns, numbers, plurals, predicated, there are, there is, verbs

This business of verbing
business English, business-speak, conversion, English words, nouns, verbing, verbs

This statement is false
Cretan paradox, Epimenidean paradox, liar’s paradox, logic, meaning, paradox, pragmatics, self-contradiction

365 words for drunk
drunk, drunken, synonyms

To be a preposition or not to be a preposition
infinitive, prepositions, to

Tonnes of options
centimetre, idioms, inch, kilometre, metric conversion, mile, tonnes, tons

Two spaces and authority
authority, double spaces, English teachers, high school teachers, periods, punctuation, teachers, typography

Two weeks’ notice?
apostrophes, English grammar, English syntax, genitive, possessive, time measure

Unpacking the Grey Owl
commas, English grammar, English syntax, Grey Owl, syntax

Unrequoted love
grammar, poems, poetry, quotation marks, quotes, Songs of Love and Grammar

A variety of ways of using a variety
a variety, collective nouns, conjugation, English grammar, grammar

Watch your endings, genii!
-ii, -us, Engl, I, Latin plurals, plural

Well Begun Is Nearly Done: Desktop publishing workflow at warp speed
change-alls, desktop publishing, find-and-replace, InDesign, layout, Microsoft Word, styles

What “Did You Know,” exactly, anyway?
Did You Know?, information, Shift Happens

What flavour of English do you want?
business English, collocation, context-focused discourse, field of discourse, information-focused discourse, interactive discourse, mode of discourse, narrative-focused discourse, non-narrative-focused discourse, pragmatics, proper English, reflected meaning, register, slang, stance, style of discourse, syntax, technical English, tone, vocabulary

What’s including what?
English grammar, including

What’s the reason to not do it?
split infinitive, split infinitives, splitting infinitives

What’s the referent?
danglers, editing, English grammar, grammar, referents, relative pronouns, syntax, which

What’s up with English spelling?
alphabet, English, English language history, English spelling, Old English, orthography, Roman alphabet, silent e, silent letters, spelling, spelling reform

What we pay with in word country
communication, economy, interaction, language, pragmatics, status, word tasting notes, words

What would result in you sounding better?
English grammar, English syntax, possessive, gerunds, participles

What would you need in order to know if this is right?
in order to, conditional, if, to, whether.

When an “error” isn’t
a historic, ain’t, alright, an historic, anyways, can, capitalization, conjunctions, decimate, descriptivism, double negatives, double superlatives, fewer, fun, hopefully, language change, lay, less, lie, like, may, more unique, prepositions, prescriptivism, sentence adverbs, sociolinguistics, split infinitives, standard English, till, verbing

When does the new decade begin?
1999, 2000, 2009, 2010, AD, decades, millennia, millennium, new decade, new millennium, years

Where to link to?
editing, links, web design, websites

Whoever tells you to always avoid splitting infinitives is wrong
English grammar, split infinitive, splitting infinitives

“Whom” is a foreign word
English grammar, whoever, whomever, who, whom, English syntax

Why? Because it’s a complete sentence.
complete sentences, conjunctions, English grammar, English syntax, incomplete sentences, sentences, syntax

Why “fetuses”?
English spelling, feti, fetii, fetus, fetuses, foeti, foetii, foetus, foetuses, Latin plurals, octopi, octopodes, octopus

Why not the Silicon Valley?
geographic names, place names, Silicon Valley, valleys

Why the second comma?
appositives, commas, English grammar, punctuation

Why use terms the reader might not be familiar with
clarity, imagery, metaphors, similes