Mangled Monday

Seen in the wild: This sign so incensed my sister, she went back and took a picture just for us. See it? It asks, “Have alot of square footage?” This is a simple one, folks. “Alot” is not a word, unless you are referring to that little town in India.…

Jargon is everywhere. You know–the special, “inside” language that is used by specific industries or groups of people but is completely obscure to Joe Public. (Have you ever tried to read a legal brief? Or a medical journal?) Referring to an addressed envelope as a SASE. Calling the newsperson in…

I am. Simple, isn’t it? Serenely self-confident and self-contained, it embodies a simple statement of fact, unburdened by any distractions. No, no. I’m not talking about the philosophical statement (though, that’s true, too). I’m talking about the sentence, because it simply doesn’t get any more, well, simple than that. A…

Back in February (yes, I’m late), Peter asked: I would like to know when you are allowed to use the hyphen (”-”). I tend to use it pretty often – like now – and I’m wondering if it is proper use. I also get confused when two words are joined…

There’s an AT&T Wireless commercial, showing a father knocking on steamy car windows at a make-out spot, looking for his daughter because he hadn’t gotten her text message about spending a night at a friend’s house. The voice-over has him saying something to the effect that, “Come Monday, you’ll be…

What do you think about using slang in your writing? The official Rule is that you should avoid colloquialisms when you write. I can give you two good reasons for this. 1. They date your writing, just like any other popular reference. You can refer to some popular television show…

Too many exclamation points make you sound like an overly-excited teenager, jabbering on the telephone to her BFF. (Like, OMG!) Now, obviously, there are times when you need to use them. Nobody calmly says, “Stop,” to a toddler running toward a busy road. If there’s a fire, you shout, “Fire!” I mean, the punctuation exists for a reason.

Out of so many grammatical stumbling points, I can’t choose one on which to focus today . . . So, let me ask you. Do you have any specific questions you’d like to see addressed? Topics I have not covered yet? Tips you’d like to you share? Honestly, I’m at…

Let’s just do a quick run-down on how you use quotation marks, shall we? (American-style, that is–I know some of these rules are different with British usage, but can only speak for American-English.) Simply put–and it should be redundant–quotation marks are used for quotations. If you are quoting some of…

Short but sweet today. My sister (glaring at me because I dare to like Strunk & White, which she and my niece are studying) asked me today what I thought about whether the preposition “up” should be used when writing a sentence such as: You brighten up my day Or…

Do you remember, from grade school English, how to properly annotate a title? Titles of books, newspapers, magazines, movies, poems, journals, TV shows, works of art, musical compositions, ships, and airplanes should all be underlined. Or, italicized. They are more or less interchangeable so far as typing goes. This is…

I almost touched on this the other day when I was talking about a kinder, gentler form of writing, and then realized that it was perfect for today’s Mangled Monday. Double-Negatives make a positive. (Raise your hand if you learned this in 7th grade math class.) Let’s do the grammatical…

So, let’s think … So many writing misconceptions abound, which one should I address today? How about split infinitives? That one’s always fun. In grammatical-speak, an infinitive is the most basic form of a verb. To be. To run. To cry. To write. The traditional idea is that they should…

Most of you should know what an adjective is, but what about a Compound-Adjective? This is an adjective created when two or more adjectives modify the same noun. Blue-gray paint Absent-minded professor Semi-solid food Sweet-and-Sour pork The idea is that the hyphen will help to avoid confusion. Otherwise, that tasty…

Sadly, it’s true. There are still people who get confused about when to use “your” and when to use “you’re.” This one is really simple. If you want to say, “You are,” you write “you’re.” It’s a contraction of the two words. If you mean to denote possession, you want…

Which of these words confuse you? Bath/Bathe: Bath: To soak in water. (“After a long day, all I want is a nice, hot bath.”) Bathe: The verb used when bathing. (“The dog was so filthy, it took me an hour to bathe him.” Discreet/Discrete: Discreet: Tactfully unobtrusive. (“The doctor was…

Last week, we discussed the Nominitive case for pronouns (I, he, they, etc.), so this week, naturally, we’re going to discuss the Objective Case: me, you, him, her, us, them, it, whom. Objective pronouns are used for direct objects of a sentence. Give her the key. Harry told them no.…

Gillian left a comment on yesterday’s post asking for help knowing when to use the nominative case in a sentence. If the jargon is already making you say, “What?” it’s knowing the difference between saying, “You and I” and “You and me.” In fact, the sentence that caught her eye…

Remember, back in school, when your teacher taught you never to start a sentence with a conjunction (and, but, or)? You’ll be pleased to know that, while it’s true that this is something you should avoid, it’s no longer a mandatory hard-and-fast rule. The important thing is that you not…

Remember commas? Is it just me, or does there seem to be widespread confusion about when and where to use these handy little punctuation marks? Originally, they started out indicating where to take a breath when reading aloud, but now are used for so much more. Ultimately, though, they indicate…

Ouch! There go those contractions again! We’ve covered it’s and its. We’ve covered there/their/they’re. We’ve even talked about the uses of the apostrophe. But still, everywhere I go on the internet, contractions are being misused and causing pain to those of us who know better. (I swear, you’d think that…

Have you noticed that so many punctuation points are working overtime these days? Not just the apostrophe, but also Quotation marks, which are being used not only for dialogue or for the occasional title, but for emphasis. As in when somebody writes something like: Well, I don’t really “believe” in ghosts,…