Search results for “lay”

Many of you no doubt saw the news last week that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined our ranks of fellow grammar watchdogs when he issued instructions to his staff on the proper use of commas. According to an internal State Department email given to CNN, “The Secretary has underscored the need for appropriate …

Last year we waded into the weeds of worn-out words and phrases: the verbal components that appear fresh and assimilate well in language until their nature is revealed. At first they might look just like the grass that surrounds them, but in time they disrupt communication with buzz words and catch phrases that impose on …

I may be a word nerd, but I don’t go in for word games. I’ve never been a Scrabble guy and crossword puzzles leave me cold. But I have a weakness for Jumble, a game that since the 1950s has been a daily feature in newspapers from coast to coast. When I started playing it, …

In this week’s newsletter we’ll review two classic topics that continually draw comments from our readers. In and of Itself To many people, the phrase in and of itself sounds clunky and old-fashioned. However, when used sparingly—and correctly—it serves a purpose. Example: The weather was not, in and of itself, the cause of the traffic …

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, …

We're all aware of how vital marked and measured time is to guiding and structuring our days. How then do we treat it in precise and careful writing? We offered some guidelines in our updated April 2017 article Writing Dates and Times. We'll expand on those here by delving deeper into the most recent editions of …

We've written a newsletter article about it (Problems with Prepositions), and in Rule 1 of Prepositions we state, "One of the undying myths of English grammar is that you may not end a sentence with a preposition." Yet, we still receive admonitions from well-meaning readers who think we've made an error when ending a sentence with a …

So: It's among the shortest words in English, and use of it abounds. So, when are we going to meet up? That movie was so good. I so much want to be there. He's not feeling well, so he probably won't go to the meeting. The word has become a versatile agent for our language …

Did something like this happen to you back in grade school? Some little miscreant is reprimanded by the teacher, whereupon the kid protests: "I didn't do nothin'!" And faster than you can say "teachable moment," the teacher says, "Now, Billy, you mean you didn't do anything. When you say you didn't do nothing, that means …

[Note that our discussion of this topic also has been updated as it applies to use in 2024.] We've all seen it at some point when reading: a three-letter package in brackets. It follows text to draw attention to or make a point about it. We're talking about [sic]. What is it—and when do we …