Monthly Archives: August 2007
quotation marks: U.S. v. Britain, #1
Just as the British and American rules for which side of the road to drive on are different, so too are their rules for the use of quotation marks and other punctuation. In the United States: First quotations take double … Continue reading
quotation marks
Quotation marks have a kind of domino effect on other punctuation marks, causing them to land in the wrong places — or nowhere at all. Here’s an example: When one of our fantastic staff members resigns, my first response is … Continue reading
imminent, immanent
Since there is only one letter of difference between them, imminent and immanent are easy to confuse. But they are not at all the same. Both words are adjectives. Imminent modifies something that’s about to happen: The conference in Italy … Continue reading
prerequisite, requisite, perquisite
This morning, when I began to use prerequisite in a sentence, perquisite came to mind. I guessed that they are synonyms. I trace my confusion to childhood, when my mother said something like this: “If you want to go to … Continue reading
higher education?
Unless the writer or editor pays close attention, a garbled message will leave readers scratching their heads. A case in point is the sentence below, taken from an opinion piece by two top-level education officials trying to rally support for … Continue reading
reflexive pronoun
A reflexive pronoun is personal pronoun with self or selves at the end. The singular forms of a reflective pronoun are myself, yourself, himself/herself/itself. The plural forms are ourselves, yourselves, themselves. When the subject of a sentence or clause and … Continue reading
sat/set
I recently came across this usage of sat in a mystery novel: She sat a pitcher of fresh, thick cream in the middle of the table. This is incorrect. Sat is the past tense of sit, as in, “She sat … Continue reading
Me, Myself, and I
The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., advises against using myself as a pronoun in place of I or me. Here’s an example of a journalist who doesn’t heed that advice, or at least didn’t in this case: In the … Continue reading
infer and imply
I seldom use infer or imply. That’s probably why I tend to confuse them. If you also sometimes confuse these challenging words, the examples below may help. The first example is in the words of a radio talk show host, … Continue reading
disruptive phrase and passive voice
A misplaced phrase disrupts sentence flow. Here’s an example: This tax, in virtually all cases, is collected by the county where the property is located. To improve the flow, move the phrase to the beginning of the sentence: In virtually … Continue reading
Writing Tips 