You know about deja vu, but do you know about jemais vu, presque vu, deja lu, deja entendu, and deja reve? Plus, we help you figure out when to put commas between adjectives. It's tricky, but we...
We've gone through a lot of stories and tips in 15 years—more than a thousand. Today, I picked a few of my favorites for you.
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"Stationary" and "stationery" have the same ultimate origin, but they evolved to have different meanings and one became tied to paper goods. Also, a recent survey in the UK highlighted...
"Fish" really does have two plurals. Usually you want "fish," but we talk about the odd examples when "fishes" is the right choice. Plus, "bupkis" can mean "nothing" or "something worthless," but...
"If" and "whether" are often interchangeable, but sometimes using one or the other will change the meaning of your sentence. And if you've ever wondered why we say, "the exception that proves the...
We look at the surprising origins of some of our favorite words for walking. Plus, how do you know when to write "The car almost ran me over" versus "The car almost ran over me"?
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Grammar Pop iOS game.
Peeve Wars card game.
Grammar Girl...
Many people have been taught that it's wrong to start a sentence with a conjunction, but nearly all major style guides say doing so is fine. Neal Whitman investigates why there seems to be such a...
How Long Is a Good Sentence? 'Cord' or 'Chord'?
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You laughed and laughed while watching "Friends." One reason it was funny is that the writers took what you expect from a conversation and flipped it on its head. Plus, how cicadas got their name,...
I'm hearing "graduated college" much more often. Is it still wrong? Plus, five bona fide Latin phrases you can use to describe something wonderful.
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We go through the simple rules for "bring" and "take," but then talk about the fun exceptions and dialect forms. Plus, how "The Queen's Gambit" can help us remember the difference between "gambit"...
Is that dialogue feeling off? We're here to help! Plus, how to write about degrees this graduation season.
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Have you seen the tomato sauce spelled two different ways? "Ketchup" is the better spelling, but the history of the word is pretty interesting. We also look at how to punctuate questions,...
"Op-ed" may not mean what you think it means. Then we discuss how long a paragraph should be.
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We talk about the difference between "a prince of a fellow" and "not too good of a time," and then we look at two things that make English especially weird.
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12 practical tips and tools that will help you write faster in the time you already have. Also, we explore why we call a letter that looks like two V's a "double U."
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We use a children's book and a Shakespeare play to talk about "borrow" and "lend," and then we help with the complexities of using "neither" and "nor."
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To hog, to ram, to bird dog. We run through a fun list of animal-inspired verbs. Plus, amazingly, it wasn't that long ago that usage experts recommended "persons" instead of "people." And what's...
A vast number of words have surprising origins. We talked about some today with author Ralph Keyes, including "scientist," "impressionist," "beatnik," and "paradigm."
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