Search results for “DE”

In this blog, I'd like to help you with other uses of the colon. Rule 4: It's often useful to use a colon instead of a semicolon between two sentences when the second sentence explains or illustrates the first sentence and no coordinating conjunction is being used to connect the sentences. If only one sentence …

Before computers, we used typewriters to underline book titles, and we placed quotation marks around article titles. However, many current style manuals recommend italicizing book titles and magazine names (impossible to do on a typewriter) and using quotation marks around articles. Example: I read Lord of the Flies in high school. Example: I enjoyed reading …

A subscriber recently wrote in with a question that's a good followup to last week's Tip of the Week, Writing Numbers: "When are hyphens used with numbers? Is it 13 feet or 13-feet; 12 hours or 12-hours?" Rule: Generally, hyphenate between two or more adjectives when they come before a noun and act as a …

E-Newsletter reader Clifford A. recently wrote: My wife says she texted our daughter. I say, I sent her a text message. Is texted an accepted usage? English allows many nouns to become verbs. We can table a motion, salt our food, and water our plants. Particularly in the realm of developing technology, new usages are …

The Chicago Manual of Style lists the following holidays as singular possessives: Mother's Day, Father's Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day. Plural possessive is used for Presidents' Day. Your guess is as good as anyone's about Secretary's vs. Secretaries' vs. Secretaries Day and Boss's vs. Bosses' vs. Bosses Day. What would you do if …

Please note: This original post has been updated and replaced by a new version of Writing Dates and Times. Rule: The following examples apply when using dates: The meeting is scheduled for June 30. The meeting is scheduled for the 30th of June. We have had tricks played on us on April 1. The 1st …

If you question the necessity of punctuation, here is a story that should illustrate its power. A professor wrote on the chalkboard: A woman without her man is nothing. He asked students to correct any punctuation errors. While most of the male students saw nothing wrong with the sentence, most of the females rewrote the …

Regardless vs. Irregardless Some words in the English language are so overused that we don’t notice that they are incorrect or don’t even exist. A perfect example is irregardless. Many scholars maintain there is no such word as irregardless because regardless already means "without regard." The -ir prefix is redundant. Sneaked vs. Snuck Both sneaked …

Can you guess which word I see misspelled most often? Did you guess misspelled? You’re getting warm. Actually, it’s grammar. From my experience, I think it’s safe to estimate that 20 percent of the English-speaking world spells it with an -er ending. Before anyone points an accusing finger at anyone else, we might want to …

Using bi or semi in front of time periods can create tremendous confusion these days as definitions and style guidance continue to soften and blur. To illustrate this, we located the following definitions of words with the bi or semi prefix after researching both style books and dictionaries. Biweekly: once every two weeks or twice a …