Search results for “im”

Let’s welcome baseball season with this item by veteran copy editor and word nerd Tom Stern. Baseball’s back. I realize a lot of people don’t care. To them, sports fans are knuckle draggers who probably also read comic books while chewing gum with their mouths open. But baseball isn’t called “the grand old game” for …

The debate rages on regarding inclusion of the Oxford, or serial, comma. Our GrammarBook.com Rule 1 of Commas recommends, "To avoid confusion, use commas to separate words and word groups with a series of three or more." We would like to share the below OnlineSchools.com presentation with you for this week's grammar tip. We apologize …

Bart F. recently wrote, “I read your Bluebook rules, but the examples omitted the common usage found when a sentence ends with a quote that completes the thought.” Bart continued: Texas, with a history of rugged individualism, was part of the “Sagebrush rebellion”. I was taught that this was the one exception to the quotation …

This column is mostly concerned about the written word, but even so, pronunciation will inevitably enter the picture from time to time. The expressions chomping at the bit and stomping ground are both corruptions of the original champing and stamping. People find this incredible. But, for instance, consult the 1961 cult-favorite western film One-Eyed Jacks, …

That’s right, I admit it. I’m a word nerd. I pick, pick, pick at the way you express yourself. Despite protests of apathy, people of all ages care about how well they express themselves. Deep down, everyone likes to be right about language, and you can even hear little kids teasing each other about talking …

NOTE: An independent (or strong) clause is a simple sentence with a subject, verb, and a complete thought. A dependent (or weak) clause has a subject and verb but does not express a complete thought. Rule - Use a comma to separate two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction—and, or, but, for, nor. You …

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 …

I know many avid readers, and I wish I read as much as they do. But to my surprise, very few of them read with a dictionary on hand. When I ask why, the answer is some variation on “It ruins the mood” or “I want to relax, not study” or the most self-deluded one: …

Last week’s grammar tip focused on the rules for using who vs. that. This week, we will learn the rules to guide us on when to use that vs. which. NOTE: We feel that maintaining the distinction between that and which in essential and nonessential phrases and clauses is useful, even though the principle is sometimes disregarded by experienced writers. …

In a recent newsletter, I corrected myself after some readers wrote in saying the word that should have been who in the sentence "There's not one mother I know that would allow her child to cross that street alone." However, it got me thinking more about this topic, so I dug a little deeper into …