by Cherie Tucker
February 2018
I know we’ve done it before, but a review of those pesky ones couldn’t hurt. Here’s a reminder of some of those words that are being used incorrectly so often that you might be taken in and start using the wrong ones yourself.
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January 2018
I taught a class at the University of Washington last quarter and had to learn a computer program called Canvas. I had to call the IT folks a couple of times to find out how to do something, and what I discovered is that the language they speak in IT is not quite conversational English.
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December 2017
The worst mistake you can make involving parentheses is to leave off the last one so that readers don't know when to stop whispering. Parentheses serve to interrupt the sentence or the paragraph to add something sotto voce to what you are writing, which can be as simple as one word to add clarification or a whole sentence.
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November 2017
It’s such a common greeting, like “How are you?” that people don’t really think about it, nor do they really care about your answer. But you should.
The most common answer to that how-ya-doin’ question is, “Good, I’m doin’ good.” What most people don’t realize is that they have just said that they are performing charitable acts.
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October 2017
When words sound the same and are almost spelled the same, it is sometimes difficult to remember which one to use correctly. The difference between a while and awhile often causes writers to pause. The solution is to remember that the single word awhile is an adverb and is used to describe an action.
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September 2017
Say these aloud and read the sentences that follow aloud as well. If necessary record yourself, so you can play it back until it sticks.
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August 2017
It’s summer, and it’s hot; learning this won’t tax you excessively. There is a difference between comprise and compose in both speaking and writing that many people are unaware of.
Comprise is a verb. The parts comprise the whole. In that sense, the “whole” is made up of, or contains, all of the parts.
Read Moreby Cherie Tucker
July 2017
It’s summer, so are a few easy-to-remember rules:
Spell out ALL numbers from 1 to 10 when writing and there is no need to quickly comprehend them. I tried on one of those hats, but it was too big.
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June 2017
We haven’t discussed this for a long while, and I’ve noticed some bad habits developing. You know how to use the hyphen when you break a word at the end of a line. You aren’t as good as using that same hyphen to connect two words in a manner that gives them a single meaning. We used an example last time showing the difference between drive up, as in “Drive up to my house,” and drive-up, as in “The bank has a new drive-up window.”
Read Moreby Cherie Tucker
May 2017
Almost everyone knows the “rule” that says you must never end a sentence with a preposition. They irony is that most people who know this rule don’t know what a preposition is. And they don’t know that there are exceptions.
Read Moreby Cherie Tucker
April 2017
To all of you who insist in putting in that comma before the and in a series and who have been told it isn’t necessary, United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has declared that it is. Just this month their decision stated that because of a missing comma, instructions for delivery drivers were unclear, and the court ruled against a dairy company in Maine, awarding the drivers “an estimated $10 million.”
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March 2017
In today’s paper, a quote ended with:
“Therefore, we’ve fallen flat on our face.”
When a sentence like that came up in one of my classes, someone asked if it shouldn’t be “flat on our faces.” The conversation then continued like this:
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February 2017
If you have ever cooked using a recipe, you may recall that each step is numbered and follows the same structure:
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January 2017
Let’s start the year with this resolution: We will never again say, “another” into this strange construction. It supposedly means that there is another way to look at something entirely. Or something like that. Perhaps.
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December 2016
As you prepare to write all the holiday cards and gift tags, here are a couple things to remember.
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November 2016
We’ve looked at the trick of having “FANBOYS” stand for for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so to help you remember the comma rule; however, there is a tendency to err on the wrong side. When your sentence consists of two parts that could be separated into two stand-alone sentences,
Read Moreby Cherie Tucker
October 2016
Many people say that you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition, but that’s true only when that proposition is redundant, as in the dreadful "Where’s it at?" ("Where" tells you that location is what you need, so adding "at," a second location word, is unnecessary.) We end many sentences with prepositions, especially in speaking. For example, "What’s this for?" But do people really know what a preposition is?
Read Moreby Cherie Tucker
September 2016
I’ve noticed frequently that people aren’t distinguishing between two-word expressions and single words that are said the same. Check these to make sure you aren’t guilty of choosing the wrong one in your writing.
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August 2016
Children often mistake words they hear in songs. They think it’s “Round John Virgin” or “sleep in heavenly peas.” These mistakes can be charming, but many times when people are speaking, they shorten or garble or mispronounce words, so their listeners can hear things wrong, as well. One such mangled expression that happens frequently is “gonna.”
Read Moreby Cherie Tucker
June 2016
ILately I’ve heard way too many professional people say, “That’s a whole nother thing.” I’ve talked to you about this before, but it was way back in May of 2011, so let’s take a look back and see what else you might have forgotten.
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