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grammar

Rules? What Rules? (Patricia C. Wrede)

If somebody’s writing “rule” has the word “never” in it, or can be easily rephrased so as to have the word “never” …

Are We Losing Fewer?

I’m seeing it more and more: “less” being used in places where “fewer” should be. I can understand the occasional misuse, but I’m seeing it throughout the Internet and in some magazines and newspaper articles as well as advertisements. We may have transitioned from misuse of “less” being bad grammar into the realm of it being a change of word use.

Grammar Myths – Let Bygone Rules Be Gone

Is it no wonder that I love playing in the fields of the English language? Grammar Myths.

Updating English (again)

Strict grammarians aside, I like to think that many people understand that English is a vibrant and adaptive language. We’ve entered into an amazing era of linguistic experimentation and adaptation. To that end, I’d like to once again throw in my 2¢ worth

Genderless Pronouns – Ey, Em, and Eir

English changes all the time. Our standard pronoun structure has served us well, but it does have weaknesses. It’s time that we fill the gap of not having a non-gendered pronoun. Whether in academic writing, or just because we want to be inclusively generic, ey/em/eir fit the bill easily.

A Pox on Collective Nouns

I have a major peeve with soccer announcers…not football/fútbol announcers, but soccer announcers (you know, the American kind). Almost every soccer match I watch is infected with a grammatical irritant that I’ve tried to scratch, but the itch persists. What bug is annoying me this time? The inappropriate application of verb agreement with collective nouns.

American Quotes

The single most annoying part for me of the American version of English is the stupid convention of placing punctuation inside quote …