Yesterday I did something I regret: I clicked on and took one of those stupid quizzes that go around Facebook. It’s called How good is your grammar? and I clicked on it not to find out how good my grammar is, but because I wanted to know what the test-maker thought good grammar was. I […]
A little while ago a link to this list of 23 maps and charts on language went around on Twitter. It’s full of interesting stuff on linguistic diversity and the genetic relationships among languages, but there was one chart that bothered me: this one on the history of the English language by Sabio Lantz. The […]
Full disclosure: I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Viking. I was intrigued when I first heard that Steven Pinker, the linguist and cognitive scientist, was writing a book on style. I’ve really enjoyed some of his other books, such as The Stuff of Thought, but wasn’t this the guy […]
Forgive me if you’ve already seen this, but I was interviewed a couple of weeks ago at Grammarist.com. Find out what got me into language blogging, what my greatest accomplishment in the world of language is, and why you should care more about language. Check it out!
Unless you’re a subscriber to Copyediting newsletter, you don’t get the chance to read my “Grammar on the Edge” column. But now you can get a sneak peek of my most recent entry, “There Are a Number of Agreement Problems,” on Copyediting’s website. You’ll still have to subscribe to get the whole thing, but maybe […]
I have a new post on Visual Thesaurus, and this one’s open to non-subscribers: The distinction between less and fewer is one of the most popular rules in the peevers’ arsenal. It’s a staple of lists of grammar rules that everyone supposedly gets wrong, and sticklers have pressured stores into changing their signs from “10 […]
Few language issues inspire as much fervent debate as the question of whether you need a comma before the last item in a series, also known as the Oxford, Harvard, or serial comma. This is the comma that you sometimes see before and in lists, such as “I need you to go to the store […]
First, I apologize for not blogging in so long. It’s been a crazy summer, complete with a new baby (yay!), a new job (yay!), and moving to a new house (boo!). I’ve got a few posts in the works and hope to have something done soon. Second, it’s time for another sale! Now through September […]
Several days ago, the Twitter account for the Chicago Manual of Style tweeted, “If you’re feeling sick, use nauseated rather than nauseous. Despite common usage, whatever is nauseous induces nausea.” The relevant entry in Chicago reads, Whatever is nauseous induces a feeling of nausea—it makes us feel sick to our stomachs. To feel sick is […]
T-shirt day is June 21st, and in preparation for the big day, Spreadshirt is offering 15 percent off all t-shirts when you use the coupon code MYSHIRT2014 between now and June 10th. If you met me at the annual conferences of the American Copy Editors Society and liked my shirts, now’s a good chance to […]
