Making words work better
Last week Jacob Rees-Mogg Esq., M.P. issued a style guide to his staff, proscribing certain words and phrases while enjoining a mixed bag of…
Continue reading → Jacob Rees-Mogg’s ‘style guide’. Some dispassionate thoughts.
3-minute read In the wake of Secretary Pompeo’s edicts about punctuation, which hit the U.S. headlines in late September this year, I blogged about the…
5-minute read (Less for you speed-readers out there: well done, you!) James Thurber was once asked why there was a comma in the sentence "After…
Continue reading → Pompeo and commas and CMOS. How to use commas (1).
While reading something online the other day I came across the phrase Twitter never fails to disappoint. The context made it clear that the meaning…
Continue reading → Twitter never fails to disappoint. Or should that be ‘never disappoints’?
(four-minute read) Here’s a language issue that’s new to me. The other day on Twitter @The_GrammarGeek asked: ‘There’s an opinion out there that it’s wrong…
There are one or two loose ends to tie up from the previous blog on this topic, before I move on. 1.1 which or…
Can you use which in defining (or restrictive) relative clauses? For example... "In 1957 work began, under the editorship of R. W. Burchfield, on the…
