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Category Archives: Common Grammar Errors
Paper Cuts
The daily paper serves as a living textbook on writing, but we all know that even the pros slip up once in a while. Here are a few gotchas from the past week. The sports page These two sentences appeared … Continue reading
Posted in Brevity, Common Grammar Errors, Flair & Finesse
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“Like”
We have several reasons to beware of the word “like.” Let’s see why. Like 101 Given the overuse of this word in recent years, it’s obvious we aren’t going to impress anyone with sentences such as this: The movie was, … Continue reading
Posted in Common Grammar Errors, Flair & Finesse
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Anniversary Month
Yep. If you are one of my original subscribers, you have now been receiving posts for a full year. And if you joined the party late, entries you missed are waiting for you in “Archives.” So let’s mark the one-year … Continue reading
Time for the Red Pen Again
Reach for your red pen and try your hand at this short summer quiz. What corrections and other refinements would you make in the following two sentences? 1. The principal reason I held a meeting with the Marketing staff was … Continue reading
ALL CAPS
I don’t want my readers to get too rusty over the summer, but this isn’t the season to throw a tricky quiz at you either. So let’s revisit the fairly straightforward issue of capitalization, a subject we first addressed in … Continue reading
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Your All-Star Opportunity
You and I won’t be on the field this Tuesday night in Cincinnati for the 86th Major League All-Star Game, but here’s your chance to sock some tricky curveballs out of the park. You get four times at bat to … Continue reading
Wicked “Which”
Knowing when to use that and when to use which is not as wicked a situation as you might think. Simply put, we use that to introduce a phrase or clause that is essential for clarity. We use which to … Continue reading
Historical or Historic?
Today I heard a newscaster say, “So we really are going to have a woman on the ten-dollar bill. Which historical figure do you think it will be?” If you’re normal, you’re thinking Harriet Tubman? Betsy Ross? Rosa Parks? Meryl … Continue reading
A Solid Start
The use of participles (“-ing” verbs) to get sentences off to a lively start was recommended in one of my earliest posts, on October 10, 2014 (http://www.normfriedman.com/blog/i-got-choppy-rhythm/). Here’s what I said at the end of that post about avoiding monotonous … Continue reading
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More cloudy Issues
Let’s keep the quiz momentum going another week. Try your hand at identifying one or more errors in the following sentences. 1. If you’re wondering where my Dad is, Uncle Al saw him hop in the hotel bar. 2. Because … Continue reading