A few weeks ago, the folks at the grammar-checking website Grammarly wrote a piece about supposed grammar mistakes in Fifty Shades of Grey. Despite being a runaway hit, the book has frequently been criticized for its terrible prose, and Grammarly apparently saw an opportunity to fix some of the book’s problems (and probably sell its […]
Good news, everyone! I have a new T-shirt design inspired by that one movie featuring the popular interlocking brick system. Head over to the Arrant Pedantry Store to take a look. I’ve also moved a couple of posts over here from a now-defunct site. When I finished grad school a couple of years ago, my […]
I recently received an email asking about the expression woe is me, namely what the plural would be and why it’s not woe am I. Though the phrase may strike modern speakers as bizarre if not downright ungrammatical, there’s actually a fairly straightforward explanation: it’s an archaic dative expression. Strange as it may seem, the […]
And/or is a surprisingly contentious little conjunction. Some lawyers love it, but most editors hate it—and many judges hate it too. Find out what the problem is in my newest post on Visual Thesaurus, “Clear and/or Unclear”.
Attention, editors! Get a great deal on a subscription to Copyediting newsletter when you use the code COPY at checkout. It’s full of great information on style and usage, advice on getting your freelance business going, tech tips, and, of course, my column on grammar. The code is good for any subscription, audio conference, or […]
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 […]
