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Today I will answer a couple of questions I received from radio listeners when I was a guest. Question: Should you say "pleaded guilty" or "pled guilty"? Answer: Either one is considered correct. Question: Does "enormity" mean "something monstrous" or "something huge"? Answer: In formal writing, enormity has nothing to do with something's size. The …

This is a Q & A with Wendy Burt-Thomas, a full-time freelance writer, editor, and copywriter with more than 1,000 published pieces. Her third book, The Writer's Digest Guide to Query Letters hit stores in December 2008. Q: Can you tell us about your book? The book was a great fit for me because I'd …

Take a look at this sentence from a restaurant review that was sent in by a reader: The restaurant operates with an efficiency and authority that defy the chaos in the pleasant but cramped room. Is it correct to use the indefinite article an in front of an abstract noun (efficiency)? If so, should we …

Rule: Always spell out simple fractions and use hyphens with them. Example: One-half of the pies have been eaten. Rule: A mixed fraction can be expressed in figures unless it is the first word of a sentence. Example: We expect a 5 1/2 percent wage increase. Example: Five and one-half percent was the maximum allowable …

For the past tense of to plead, you may use either pleaded or pled. Example: He pleaded not guilty before his trial. Example: He pled not guilty before his trial. Note: In the strict legal sense, one cannot plead innocent. Word of the Week Avuncular: Like an uncle, especially in kindness or tolerance. Example: He …

Prior to computers, people were taught to underline titles of books and plays and to surround chapters, articles, songs, and other shorter works in quotation marks. However, here is what The Chicago Manual of Style says: When quoted in text or listed in a bibliography, titles of books, journals, plays, and other freestanding works are …

Today's social media began taking shape in the early 2000s with platforms such as MySpace and LinkedIn. It has since expanded into influential applications such as Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat. Text messaging likewise gained popularity in the early 2000s and peaked in usage between 2006 and 2010. It then broadened …

We recently discussed how nouns can be made into verbs, a practice referred to as verbing: e.g., Why don't you friend me on Facebook? Within its dynamic fluidity, English also often uses verbs as nouns or turns verbs into them, a process known as nominalization. Examples Let's go for a walk. What an epic fail. …

A fixed grammar lets us communicate with a clear, ordered structure we can all understand. Functioning as a GPS for directing our thoughts and ideas, it provides accurate markers and routes for moving our mind's content into intelligible expressions. While language is organized to unify understanding, it also can bend and flex to expand intentions …

The English we speak in the U.S. today represents centuries of influence, change, and inheritance. We can see this, for example, in how American English has been used in the 2020s as compared with during the 1820s. We can also readily recognize differentiating factors such as how our word choices differ from those in other …