December 23, 2024
Spaghetto, paparazzo, and confetto may sound unnatural and strange to our ears, but they’re real singular words! The same goes for die, magum, and a bunch of other uncommon singular forms of plural words that we use all the time. Read more…
Folks who are passionate about English and grammar love to talk about William Shakespeare. He’s called “The Bard”—not “a bard,” “THE Bard”—because he’s widely considered to be the greatest English poet (and one of the greatest storytellers) who ever lived. Read more…
December 16, 2024
Hey kids, spelling is fun! Songwriters are poets, and Taylor Swift is arguably one of the best. No one can tell me that “You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath” isn’t some of the Read more…
December 10, 2024
Is it FBI or F.B.I.? PhD or Ph.D.? And once we solve the question about periods or no periods, we still have spaces and capitalization to contend with. Let’s talk acronyms! What Is an Acronym? An acronym is a word Read more…
Don’t panic! It’s true that words such as “FBI” and “TBA” are actually NOT acronyms at all, so you might be thinking that everything you’ve ever known is a lie (at least I did when I started learning about this). Read more…
December 9, 2024
Did you know that “snafu” is an acronym? What about “care package”? I bet there are at least a few words on this list that you never knew were acronyms! Quick Disclaimer: Acronyms vs. Initialisms Acronyms are words that are Read more…
December 5, 2024
I’m back to disprove yet another grammar myth. We’ve talked about avoiding contractions, putting two spaces after a period, ending a sentence with a preposition, and splitting infinitives. Now it’s time to tackle yet another “rule” that is actually complete Read more…
Has a teacher ever told you that you should never use contractions in formal or professional writing? Maybe you got an essay back with all the don’ts and I’ms scribbled out and replaced with do nots and I ams. I’ve Read more…
December 2, 2024
One of the quickest ways to date yourself as a writer is to add two spaces instead of just one in between each sentence. Listen, I KNOW your English teacher told you that you have to do it. But it’s Read more…
NASA will install a new laser that travels at 671,000,000 mph; the ETA of their new toy is Jan. 5th, 2025. As far as I know, nothing about that sentence is true (NASA, unfortunately, does not discuss their new gadgets Read more…