October 21, 2024
It might sometimes seem like people just toss hyphens randomly into their writing. And with so many different rules and various situations when you do or don’t need a hyphen (even for the same word!), it’s very possible that some Read more…
Babysit or baby-sit? Common sense or common-sense? First aid, first-aid, or firstaid? There are three different kinds of compound words—open, closed, and hyphenated—and it can be tricky to keep them all straight! Overview: What Is a Compound Word? A compound Read more…
October 18, 2024
If we only had short, simple sentences, our writing would be super boring to read. Every sentence would be like this. There would be no variation. Books would be absolutely unbearable. We would sound like robots. Luckily, we’re not restricted Read more…
October 11, 2024
There are four different sentence structures to choose from: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. Each has a different assortment of independent and dependent clauses, and using a variety of structures makes your writing more interesting to read! Let’s start off Read more…
A clause is a combination of a subject and a predicate (e.g., she ran; I discovered; he reads). There might be more information added in, such as direct objects, adjectives, adverbs, etc. (e.g., she ran four miles quickly; I discovered Read more…
October 3, 2024
These two abbreviations get mixed up constantly. Most of the time, people use “i.e.” incorrectly when they mean “e.g.” But sometimes it’s the other way around. A big part of the problem is likely that both “i.e.” and “e.g.” are Read more…
September 17, 2024
Adjectives are words that describe a noun or pronoun. They might tell you the shape, size, color, weight, material, or various other qualities of the noun. But before you go tossing adjectives all over your writing, it’s important to know Read more…
I recently published an article about adjective order, and one of the types of adjectives that are listed in that article is determiners, which includes words like “our,” “these,” “a/an,” and “the.” While my husband was reading that post, he Read more…
September 12, 2024
Why does “the brick old house” sound weird but “the old brick house” is fine? So many grammar rules are difficult to remember and even trickier to perfect, but this one is pretty much automatic for most native English speakers. Read more…
Anyone who says they don’t use the singular “they” is likely kidding themselves. After all, you probably read that sentence with no trouble or misunderstanding at all, and it has not one but TWO singular “they”s! So why is the Read more…