Tag: usage
group name: grammarweasel
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June 13, 2008 10:55 PM EDT --
In this post we're going to explore something you may use all the time in your writing—probably without even knowing it. I'm talking about the absolute phrase .
Basically, an absolute . . .
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June 22, 2008 02:00 AM EDT --
You probably know that if you accidentally type, say, aobut or Febuary in a Word document, squiggly little red underlining will alert you to your mistake. Then you just select the offending word and . . .
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June 13, 2008 11:00 PM EDT --
Passive Resistance
In this post we'll begin to examine the dreaded critiquing mark of passive .
"Passive-ness" has received excessive and perhaps undue scrutiny in the . . .
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July 28, 2008 12:44 AM EDT --
German may be a tough language to learn, but they did make it easy on us in one aspect: all nouns are capitalized. You never have to beat your Brain against your Skull wondering whether this Word or that . . .
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June 19, 2008 02:07 PM EDT --
The Dialogue Bog
The dialogue bog is where many beginning fiction writers seem to get caught. It's a set of common dialogue problems that mark you as an amateur. They're easy mistakes . . .
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June 22, 2008 08:58 PM EDT --
In my earlier post 22 Reasons Not To Trust Spell-Check , I gave you a test: Replace each (?) with the appropriate word from the following list.
I know (?) no way that Porsche could be (?). . . .
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June 13, 2008 11:12 PM EDT --
In the "Passive Resistance" articles , we learned how to recognize some of the passive voice's many disguises and how to deal with them. While the techniques varied, the result was always . . .
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June 23, 2008 04:54 PM EDT --
In the last post I offered you a challenge: to type the word 'til in MS Word . . . with a properly curving apostrophe. If you tried it, you probably typed 'til (note the mark is actually . . .
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June 27, 2008 06:04 PM EDT --
The comma is probably the most commonly used punctuation mark in the English language. Or maybe it's second after the period; I'm not sure. But I think I can say with certainty that it's the . . .
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July 29, 2008 10:04 AM EDT --
Here's a quick overview of the helpful articles on grammar and writing now available at The Grammar Weasel :
Dangling Participles (series of 2 articles)
Participial Phrases
Absolute . . .
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July 06, 2009 11:44 AM EDT --
Combining sentences:
My mother is a Democrat. My father is a Republican.
My mother is a Democrat, but my father is a Republican.
(and, or, nor, for, but)
My . . .
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June 13, 2008 11:06 PM EDT --
In Part I we learned that a sentence with a passive-voice verb takes the form:
A was/were B -ed
where A is a subject receiving action (rather than performing it) and B is . . .
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June 16, 2008 10:20 AM EDT --
Earlier I promised a long-awaited distinction between passive voice and passive writing —or more specifically, passive verbs . Passive voice describes a sentence in which the subject receives . . .
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June 16, 2008 11:23 AM EDT --
I ended my last post with a curious sentence:
But was and were , along with all the to-be verbs, are the source of many grammatical misunderstandings.
Or, simplified: . . .
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July 17, 2008 01:16 PM EDT --
Most beginning writers use far more words than necessary. It's probably because we all had some junior high English teacher who demanded x-hundred-word essays ("Shakespeare was a very, very, . . .
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August 13, 2008 01:14 PM EDT --
Previous post: Total Ellipse
In typing ellipses, you might have noticed that three consecutive periods triggers an autocorrect feature in Word. It converts “period-period-period” into . . .
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June 16, 2008 10:28 AM EDT --
Last post we discussed the evils of the unofficial passive verbs was and were . We've already seen how to dispense with these verbs in association with the passive voice . . .
Miss . . .
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June 16, 2008 10:56 AM EDT --
Last post I asked you to evaluate the verb usage in the following sentence:
After capturing Dr. Maybe, Agent Pi was being a self-centered jerk.
Maybe you noticed that per the . . .
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July 22, 2008 12:10 PM EDT --
The Dialogue Bog
The dialogue bog is where many beginning fiction writers seem to get caught. It's a set of common dialogue problems that mark you as an amateur. They're easy mistakes . . .
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March 08, 2009 12:32 AM EST --
You’re anxiously awaiting the response to a manuscript you dutifully submitted for critique, competition, or publication. You’ve labored extensively on meticulously selecting the most incisively . . .
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