Search results for “dialogue”

The dash (—) and the ellipsis (…) are two useful tools for writing in English. Each mark gives us the means to add pacing and patterns of thought that follow how we often think and speak. However, one mark's functions can sometimes be confused for the other's. We'll look at how to use the marks …

The last couple of years have seen a greater emphasis on how we refer to and write about cultural identity in a wonderfully diverse country such as the U.S. In this discussion, we'll share some current style guidance you can consider. When we seek reinforcement for certain style items at GrammarBook.com, we most often refer …

Grammar in American English includes many finer details. One topic that involves several is punctuation in a quote, a subject that still often prompts questions from our readers. In this review, we'll explore proper punctuation in quoted content. Punctuation in a Quote: Quotation Marks Use quotation marks to set off all direct quotations. Quotation marks …

Although, traditionally, can has meant "to be able" and may has meant "to be permitted" or to express possibility, both can and may are commonly used interchangeably (especially in spoken, informal language) in respect to permission. Even the Oxford English dictionary informs us that the permission use of can is not incorrect, but it's better and more polite to use may in formal …

We live in an age of constant communication through multiple channels. Written correspondence can be as full of effort and care as a handwritten letter or as abridged and impulsive as a tweet or a text. We also exist in a time when the line between professional vs. personal and formal vs. informal addressing of …

Some would say that the 2012 election year’s political dialogue divided the country into the obscenely ultra-rich one percent and the ninety-nine percent who comprise the poor, the shrinking middle class and the, I guess you could say, tastefully affluent. Compare that with the literary one-percenters, a mulish minority of nitpickers who believe “proper” speaking and …

The writer Elmore Leonard, who died in 2013 at the age of 87, was the master of hard-bitten prose. He started out as a pulp novelist, and went on to transcend the genre. Since the mid-1950s, more than forty of his works have been adapted for movies and TV, many of them featuring such A-listers …

This election year’s political dialogue has divided the country into the obscenely ultra-rich one percent and the ninety-nine percent who comprise the poor, the shrinking middle class and the, I guess you could say, tastefully affluent. Compare that with the literary one-percenters, a mulish minority of nitpickers who believe “proper” speaking and writing preserve English’s …